2 Kings 9:24–10:11

²⁴Then Jehu drew his bow^k and shot Joram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot. ²⁵Jehu said to Bidkar, his chariot officer, “Pick him up and throw him on the field that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. Remember how you and I were riding together in chariots behind Ahab his father when the Lord spoke this prophecy^l against him: ²⁶‘Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth^m and the blood of his sons, declares the Lord, and I will surely make you pay for it on this plot of ground, declares the Lord.’^c Now then, pick him up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of the Lord.”ⁿ

²⁷When Ahaziah king of Judah saw what had happened, he fled up the road to Beth Haggan.^d Jehu chased him, shouting, “Kill him too!” They wounded him in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam,^o but he escaped to Megiddo^p and died there. ²⁸His servants took him by chariot^q to Jerusalem and buried him with his ancestors in his tomb in the City of David. ²⁹(In the eleventh^r year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king of Judah.)

Jezebel Killed

³⁰Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she put on eye makeup,^s arranged her hair and looked out of a window. ³¹As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, “Have you come in peace, you Zimri,^t you murderer of your master?”^e

³²He looked up at the window and called out, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. ³³“Throw her down!” Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot.^u

³⁴Jehu went in and ate and drank. “Take care of that cursed woman,” he said, “and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter.”^{v 35}But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands. ³⁶They went back and told Jehu, who said, “This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs^w will devour Jezebel’s flesh.^{fx 37}Jezebel’s body will be like dung^y on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, ‘This is Jezebel.’ ”

Ahab’s Family Killed

10Now there were in Samaria^z seventy sons^a of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel,^ab to the elders and to the guardians^c of Ahab’s children. He said, ²“You have your master’s sons with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons. Now as soon as this letter reaches you, ³choose the best and most worthy of your master’s sons and set him on his father’s throne. Then fight for your master’s house.”

⁴But they were terrified and said, “If two kings could not resist him, how can we?”

⁵So the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders and the guardians sent this message to Jehu: “We are your servants^d and we will do anything you say. We will not appoint anyone as king; you do whatever you think best.”

⁶Then Jehu wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are on my side and will obey me, take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel by this time tomorrow.”

Now the royal princes, seventy of them, were with the leading men of the city, who were rearing them. ⁷When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all seventy^e of them. They put their heads^f in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel. ⁸When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, “They have brought the heads of the princes.”

Then Jehu ordered, “Put them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning.”

⁹The next morning Jehu went out. He stood before all the people and said, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who killed all these? ¹⁰Know, then, that not a word the Lord has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The Lord has done what he announced^g through his servant Elijah.”^{h 11}So Jehuⁱ killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor.^j