2 Kings 10:6–11

⁶Then he wrote 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 leaders of the city, who were charged with their upbringing. ⁷When the letter reached them, they took the king’s sons and killed them, seventy persons; they put their heads in baskets and sent them to him at Jezreel.^{* 8}When 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. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who struck down all these?^{* 10}Know, then, that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of the Lord that the Lord spoke concerning the house of Ahab, for the Lord has done what he said through his servant Elijah.”^{* 11}So Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and priests, until he left him no survivor.