18 The horseman rode off to meet Jehu and said, 'This is what the king says: 'Do you come in peace?' ' 'What do you have to do with peace?' Jehu replied. 'Fall in behind me.' The lookout reported, 'The messenger has reached them, but he isn't coming back.'
19 So the king sent out a second horseman. When he came to them he said, 'This is what the king says: 'Do you come in peace?' ' Jehu replied, 'What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.'
20 The lookout reported, 'He has reached them, but he isn't coming back either. The driving is like that of Jehu son of Nimshi-he drives like a madman.'
21 'Hitch up my chariot,' Joram ordered. And when it was hitched up, Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah rode out, each in his own chariot, to meet Jehu. They met him at the plot of ground that had belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite.
22 When Joram saw Jehu he asked, 'Have you come in peace, Jehu?' 'How can there be peace,' Jehu replied, 'as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?'
23 Joram turned about and fled, calling out to Ahaziah, 'Treachery, Ahaziah!'
24 Then Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram between the shoulders. The arrow pierced his heart and he slumped down in his chariot.
25 Jehu 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 made this prophecy about him:
26 'Yesterday I saw the blood of Naboth 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 .' Now then, pick him up and throw him on that plot, in accordance with the word of the Lord .'
27 When Ahaziah king of Judah saw what had happened, he fled up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, shouting, 'Kill him too!' They wounded him in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, but he escaped to Megiddo and died there.
28 His servants took him by chariot to Jerusalem and buried him with his fathers in his tomb in the City of David.
29 (In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king of Judah.)
30 Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair and looked out of a window.
31 As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, 'Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?'
32 He 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.
34 Jehu went in and ate and drank. 'Take care of that cursed woman,' he said, 'and bury her, for she was a king's daughter.'
35 But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet and her hands.
36 They 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 will devour Jezebel's flesh.
37 Jezebel's body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot at Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, 'This is Jezebel.' '
10 Now there were in Samaria seventy sons of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel, to the elders and to the guardians of Ahab's children. He said,
2 'As soon as this letter reaches you, since your master's sons are with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons,
3 choose 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.'
4 But they were terrified and said, 'If two kings could not resist him, how can we?'
5 So the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders and the guardians sent this message to Jehu: 'We are your servants and we will do anything you say. We will not appoint anyone as king; you do whatever you think best.'
6 Then 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.
7 When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.
8 When 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.'
9 The 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?
10 Know then, that not a word the Lord has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The Lord has done what he promised through his servant Elijah.'
11 So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as
