2 Kings 10:6–10

⁶Then he wrote to them a second letter, saying, “If you are on my side, and if you are ready to obey me, take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me at Jezreel tomorrow at this time.” Now the king’s sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, ^qwho were bringing them up. ⁷And as soon as the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons ^sand slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel. ⁸When the messenger came and told him, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons,” he said, “Lay them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until the morning.” ⁹Then in the morning, when he went out, he stood and said to all the people, “You are innocent. ^tIt was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who struck down all these? ¹⁰Know then that there shall ^ufall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab, for the Lord has done ^vwhat he said by his servant Elijah.”