1Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Get up and go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you can sojourn, for Yahweh has called for a famine, and it is also coming upon the land for seven years.”
2So the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God; she went, she and her household, and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3And it happened at the end of seven years that the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went out to cry out to the king for her house and for her field.
4Now the king was speaking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, “Recount to me, please, all the great things that Elisha has done.”
5And it happened, just as he was recounting to the king how he had restored the dead to life, that behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life was crying out to the king for her house and her field. Then Gehazi said, “My lord the king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.”
6When the king asked the woman, she recounted it to him. So the king assigned her a certain official, saying, “Restore all that is hers, and all the produce of the field, from the day she left the land until now.”
7Then Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad king of Aram was sick. And it was told to him, saying, “The man of God has come here.”
8And the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift in your hand and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of Yahweh through him, saying, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”
9So Hazael went to meet him and took a gift in his hand, all kinds of the good things of Damascus, a load for forty camels. And he came and stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Aram has sent me to you, saying, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”
10And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You will surely recover’—but Yahweh has shown me that he will surely die.”
11Then he set his face and fixed it until he was ashamed, and the man of God wept.
12And Hazael said, “Why is my lord weeping?” And he said, “Because I know the evil you will do to the sons of Israel: their fortresses you will send up in fire, their young men you will kill with the sword, their infants you will dash to pieces, and their pregnant women you will rip open.”
13And Hazael said, “But what is your servant, a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?” And Elisha said, “Yahweh has shown me you as king over Aram.”
14Then he went from Elisha and came to his lord, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he said, “He told me you would surely recover.”
15And it happened on the next day that he took the coverlet, dipped it in water, and spread it over his face, and he died. And Hazael became king in his place.
16In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat then being king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.
17He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.
18And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh.
19Yet Yahweh was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David his servant, as he had promised him to give him a lamp for his sons all the days.
20In his days Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah, and they set a king over themselves.
21So Joram crossed over to Zair, and all the chariotry with him. He rose by night and struck the Edomites who surrounded him and the chariot commanders, but the people fled to their tents.
22So Edom rebelled from under the hand of Judah to this day. Then Libnah rebelled at that time.
23Now the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written on the scroll of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
24And Joram lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David, and Ahaziah his son became king in his place.
25In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.
26Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.
27And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh, like the house of Ahab, for he was a son-in-law of the house of Ahab.
28He went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth-gilead, and the Arameans struck Joram.
29So Joram the king returned to be healed at Jezreel of the wounds that the Arameans had struck him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Aram. And Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab at Jezreel, because he was sick.
Open in the interactive reader →