II Kings 11-15

II Kings 11

¹Now when Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she had all the rest of the seed of the kingdom put to death.

²But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, secretly took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, with the woman who took care of him, away from among the king's sons who were put to death, and put him in the bedroom; and they kept him safe from Athaliah, so that he was not put to death.

³And for six years she kept him safe in the house of the Lord, while Athaliah was ruling over the land.

⁴Then in the seventh year, Jehoiada sent for the captains of hundreds of the Carians, and the armed men, and taking them into the house of the Lord, made an agreement with them, and made them take an oath in the house of the Lord, and let them see the king's son.

⁵And he gave them orders, saying, This is what you are to do: the third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the king's house,

⁶...

⁷And the two divisions of you, who go out on the Sabbath and keep the watch of the house of the Lord,

⁸Will make a circle round the king, every man being armed; and whoever comes inside your lines is to be put to death; keep with the king, when he goes out and when he comes in.

⁹And the captains of hundreds did as Jehoiada the priest gave them orders; every one took with him his men, those who came in and those who went out on the Sabbath, and they came in to Jehoiada the priest.

¹⁰And the priest gave to the captains of hundreds the spears and body-covers which had been King David's, and which were kept in the house of the Lord.

¹¹Then the armed men took up their positions, every man with his instruments of war in his hand, from the right side of the house to the left, round about the altar and the house.

¹²Then he made the king's son come out, and put the crown on him and the arm-bands, and made him king, and put the holy oil on him; and they all, making sounds of joy with their hands, said, Long life to the king.

¹³Now Athaliah, hearing the noise made by the people, came to the people in the house of the Lord;

¹⁴And looking, she saw the king in his regular place by the pillar, and the captains and the horns near him; and all the people of the land giving signs of joy and sounding the horns. Then Athaliah, violently parting her robes, gave a cry, saying, Broken faith, broken faith!

¹⁵Then Jehoiada the priest gave orders to those who were placed in authority over the army, saying, Take her outside the lines, and let anyone who goes after her be put to death with the sword, for he said, Let her not be put to death in the house of the Lord.

¹⁶So they put their hands on her, and she went to the king's house by the doorway of the horses, and there she was put to death.

¹⁷And Jehoiada made an agreement between the Lord and the king and the people, that they would be the Lord's people; and in the same way between the king and the people.

¹⁸Then all the people of the land went to the house of Baal and had it pulled down: its altars and images were all broken to bits, and Mattan, the priest of Baal, they put to death before the altars. And the priest put overseers over the Lord's house.

¹⁹Then he took the captains of hundreds, and the Carians, and the armed men, and all the people of the land; and they came down with the king from the house of the Lord, through the doorway of the armed men, to the king's house. And he took his place on the seat of the kings.

²⁰So all the people of the land were glad, and the town was quiet; and they had put Athaliah to death with the sword at the king's house.

²¹And Jehoash was seven years old when he became king.

II Kings 12

¹In the seventh year of Jehu's rule, Jehoash became king; and he was ruling for forty years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

²Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all his days, because he was guided by the teaching of Jehoiada the priest.

³But the high places were not taken away; the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁴And Jehoash said to the priests, All the money of the holy things, which comes into the house of the Lord, (the amount fixed for every man's payment,) and all the money given by any man freely from the impulse of his heart,

⁵Let the priests take, every man from his friends and neighbours, to make good what is damaged in the house, wherever it is to be seen.

⁶But in the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, the priests had not made good the damaged parts of the house.

⁷Then King Jehoash sent for Jehoiada the priest, and the other priests, and said to them, Why have you not made good what is damaged in the house? now take no more money from your neighbours, but give it for the building up of the house.

⁸So the priests made an agreement to take no more money from the people, and not to make good what was damaged in the house.

⁹But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and making a hole in the cover of it, put it by the altar, on the right side when one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put in it regularly all the money which was taken into the house of the Lord.

¹⁰And when they saw that there was much money in the chest, the king's scribe and the high priest came and put it in bags, noting the amount of all the money there was in the house of the Lord.

¹¹And the money which was measured out they gave regularly to those who were responsible for overseeing the work, and these gave it in payment to the woodworkers and the builders who were working on the house of the Lord,

¹²And to the wall-builders and the stone-cutters, and to get wood and cut stone for building up the broken parts of the house of the Lord, and for everything needed to put the house in good order.

¹³But the money was not used for making silver cups or scissors or basins or wind-instruments or any vessels of gold or silver for the house of the Lord;

¹⁴But it was all given to the workmen who were building up the house.

¹⁵And they did not get any statement of accounts from the men to whom the money was given for the workmen, for they made use of it with good faith.

¹⁶The money of the offerings for error and the sin-offerings was not taken into the house of the Lord; it was the priests'.

¹⁷Then Hazael, king of Aram, went up against Gath and took it; and his purpose was to go up to Jerusalem.

¹⁸Then Jehoash, king of Judah, took all the holy things which Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah his fathers, the kings of Judah, had given to the Lord, together with the things he himself had given, and all the gold in the Temple store and in the king's house, and sent it to Hazael, king of Aram; and he went away from Jerusalem.

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁰And his servants made a secret design and put Joash to death at the house of Millo on the way down to Silla.

²¹And Jozacar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, came to him and put him to death; and they put him into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Amaziah his son became king in his place.

II Kings 13

¹In the twenty-third year of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah, Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for seventeen years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do; he did not keep himself from them.

³So the wrath of the Lord was burning against Israel, and he gave them up into the power of Hazael, king of Aram, and into the power of Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, again and again.

⁴Then Jehoahaz made prayer to the Lord, and the Lord gave ear to him, for he saw how cruelly Israel was crushed by the king of Aram.

⁵(And the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they became free from the hands of the Aramaeans; and the children of Israel were living in their tents as in the past.

⁶But still they did not give up the sin of Jeroboam, which he made Israel do, but went on with it; and there was an image of Asherah in Samaria.)

⁷For out of all his army, Jehoahaz had only fifty horsemen and ten carriages and ten thousand footmen; the king of Aram had given them up to destruction, crushing them like dust.

⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jehoahaz, and all he did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁹And Jehoahaz went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria; and Joash his son became king in his place.

¹⁰In the thirty-seventh year of the rule of Joash, king of Judah, Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for sixteen years.

¹¹He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he did and made Israel do, but he went on with it.

¹²Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all he did, and the force with which he went to war against Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹³And Joash went to rest with his fathers and Jeroboam took his place as king; and Joash was put into the earth in Samaria with the kings of Israel.

¹⁴Now Elisha became ill with the disease which was the cause of his death: and Joash, king of Israel, came down to him, and weeping over him said, My father, my father, the war-carriages of Israel and its horsemen!

¹⁵Then Elisha said to him, Take bow and arrows: and he took bow and arrows.

¹⁶And he said to the king of Israel, Put your hand on the bow: and he put his hand on it; and Elisha put his hands on the king's hands.

¹⁷Then he said; Let the window be open to the east: and he got it open. Then Elisha said, Let the arrow go; and he let it go. And he said, The Lord's arrow of salvation, of salvation over Aram; for you will overcome the Aramaeans in Aphek and put an end to them.

¹⁸And he said, Take the arrows: and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Send them down into the earth; and he did so three times and no more.

¹⁹Then the man of God was angry with him and said, If you had done it five or six times, then you would have overcome Aram completely; but now you will only overcome them three times.

²⁰And death came to Elisha and they put his body into the earth. Now in the spring of the year, armed bands of Moabites frequently came, overrunning the land.

²¹And while they were putting a dead man into the earth, they saw a band coming; and they put the man quickly into the place where Elisha's body was; and the dead man, on touching Elisha's bones, came to life again, and got up on his feet.

²²And Israel was crushed under the power of Hazael, king of Aram, all the days of Jehoahaz.

²³But the Lord was kind to them and had pity on them, caring for them, because of his agreement with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he would not put them to destruction or send them away from before his face till now.

²⁴Then Hazael, king of Aram, came to his end; and Ben-hadad his son became king in his place.

²⁵And Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, took again from Ben-hadad, the son of Hazael, the towns which he had taken from Jehoahaz his father in war. Three times Jehoash overcame him and got back the towns of Israel.

II Kings 14

¹In the second year of Joash, son of Joahaz, king of Israel, Amaziah, the son of Joash, became king of Judah.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king; and he was ruling in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years; his mother's name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, though not like David his father; he did as Joash his father had done.

⁴But still the high places were not taken away; the people went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁵Now when he became strong in the kingdom, straight away he put to death those servants who had taken the life of the king his father;

⁶But he did not put their children to death; for the orders of the Lord recorded in the book of the law of Moses say, The fathers are not to be put to death for the children, or the children for their fathers; but a man is to be put to death for the sin which he himself has done.

⁷He put to the sword twelve thousand men of Edom in the Valley of Salt, and took Sela in war, naming it Joktheel, as it is to this day.

⁸Then Amaziah sent representatives to Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us have a meeting face to face.

⁹And Jehoash, king of Israel, sent to Amaziah, king of Judah, saying, The thorn-tree in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, saying, Give your daughter to my son for a wife: and a beast from the woodland in Lebanon went by, crushing the thorn under his feet.

¹⁰It is true that you have overcome Edom and your heart is uplifted; let that glory be enough for you, and keep in your country; why do you make causes of trouble, putting yourself, and Judah with you, in danger of downfall?

¹¹But Amaziah gave no attention. So Jehoash, king of Israel, went up, and he and Amaziah, king of Judah, came face to face at Beth-shemesh, which is in Judah.

¹²And Judah was overcome before Israel, so that they went in flight, every man to his tent.

¹³And Jehoash, king of Israel, made Amaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoash, son of Ahaziah, prisoner at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and had the wall of Jerusalem pulled down from the doorway of Ephraim to the door in the angle, four hundred cubits.

¹⁴And he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels which were in the house of the Lord and in the store-house of the king, together with those whose lives would be the price of broken faith, and went back to Samaria.

¹⁵Now the rest of the acts of Jehoash, and his power, and how he went to war with Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹⁶And Jehoash went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria with the kings of Israel; and Jeroboam his son became king in his place.

¹⁷Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah, went on living for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash, son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.

¹⁸And the rest of the acts of Amaziah, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

¹⁹Now they made a secret design against him in Jerusalem; and he went in flight to Lachish, but they sent after him to Lachish and put him to death there.

²⁰And they took his body on horseback and put it into the earth with his fathers in Jerusalem, the town of David.

²¹Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

²²He was the builder of Elath, which he got back for Judah after the death of the king.

²³In the fifteenth year of the rule of Amaziah, son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel, became king in Samaria, ruling for forty-one years.

²⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning away from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁵He got back the old limits of Israel from the way into Hamath to the sea of the Arabah, as the Lord had said by his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet of Gath-hepher.

²⁶For the Lord saw how bitter was the trouble of Israel, and that everyone was cut off, he who was shut up and he who went free, and that Israel had no helper.

²⁷And the Lord had not said that the name of Israel was to be taken away from the earth; but he gave them a saviour in Jeroboam, the son of Joash.

²⁸Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all he did, and his power, and how he went to war with Damascus, causing the wrath of the Lord to be turned away from Israel, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁹And Jeroboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with the kings of Israel; and Zechariah his son became king in his place.

II Kings 15

¹In the twenty-seventh year of the rule of Jeroboam, king of Israel, Azariah, son of Amaziah, became king of Judah.

²He was sixteen years old when he became king, and he was ruling in Jerusalem for fifty-two years; his mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.

³And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done.

⁴But he did not take away the high places, and the people still went on making offerings and burning them in the high places.

⁵And the Lord sent disease on the king and he became a leper, and to the day of his death he was living separately in his private house. And Jotham his son was over his house, judging the people of the land.

⁶Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

⁷And Azariah went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David; and Jotham his son became king in his place.

⁸In the thirty-eighth year of Azaliah, king of Judah, Zechariah, son of Jeroboam, was king over Israel for six months.

⁹And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his father had done, not turning away from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

¹⁰And Shallum, the son of Jabesh, made a secret design against him, and, attacking him in Ibleam, put him to death and became king in his place.

¹¹Now the rest of the acts of Zechariah are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

¹²This was what the Lord had said to Jehu, Your sons to the fourth generation will be kings of Israel. And so it came about.

¹³Shallum, the son of Jabesh, became king in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah, king of Judah; and he was ruling in Samaria for the space of one month.

¹⁴Then Menahem, the son of Gadi, went up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and attacking Shallum, son of Jabesh, in Samaria, put him to death and made himself king in his place.

¹⁵Now the rest of the acts of Shallum, and the secret design which he made, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

¹⁶Then Menahem sent destruction on Tappuah and all the people in it, and its limits, from Tirzah, because they would not let him come in; and he had all the women who were with child cut open.

¹⁷In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah, king of Judah, Menahem, the son of Gadi, became king over Israel, and was ruling in Samaria for ten years.

¹⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not keep himself from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

¹⁹In his day, Pul, the king of Assyria, came up against the land; and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver so that he might let him keep the kingdom.

²⁰And Menahem got the money from Israel, from all the men of wealth, fifty silver shekels from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria went back without stopping in the land.

²¹Now the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²²And Menahem went to rest with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son became king in his place.

²³In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah, the son of Menahem, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for two years.

²⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁵And Pekah, the son of Remaliah, his captain, made a secret design against him, attacking him in the king's great house in Samaria; and with him were fifty men of Gilead; and he put him to death and became king in his place.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, and all he did, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

²⁷In the fifty-second year of Azariah, king of Judah, Pekah, the son of Remaliah, became king over Israel in Samaria, ruling for twenty years.

²⁸He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not turning from the sin which Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, did and made Israel do.

²⁹In the days of Pekah, king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, came and took Ijon and Abel-beth-maacah and Janoah and Kedesh and Hazor and Gilead and Galilee and all the land of Naphtali; and he took the people away to Assyria.

³⁰And Hoshea, the son of Elah, made a secret design against Pekah, the son of Remaliah, and, attacking him, put him to death and became king in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham, the son of Uzziah.

³¹Now the rest of the acts of Pekah, and all he did, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

³²In the second year of Pekah, the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham, the son of Uzziah, became king of Judah.

³³He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he was ruling for sixteen years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok.

³⁴And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Uzziah had done.

³⁵But he did not take away the high places, and the people still went on making offerings and burning them in the high places. He was the builder of the higher doorway of the house of the Lord.

³⁶Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah?

³⁷In those days the Lord first sent against Judah, Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah, the son of Remaliah.

³⁸And Jotham went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Ahaz his son became king in his place.