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Today's Bible Reading :: 2 Kings 6 - 8 (ESV)

2 Kings 6Listen to the passage

2 Kings 7Listen to the passage

2 Kings 8Listen to the passage

2 Kings 6

The Axe Head Recovered

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:1

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:1 - Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:2

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:2 - Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log, and let us make a place for us to dwell there.” And he answered, “Go.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:3

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:3 - Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:4

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:4 - So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:5

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:5 - But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:6

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:6 - Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:7

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:7 - And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.

Horses and Chariots of Fire

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:8

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:8 - Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, “At such and such a place shall be my camp.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:9

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:9 - But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, “Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:10

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:10 - And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:11

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:11 - And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:12

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:12 - And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:13

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:13 - And he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:14

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:14 - So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:15

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:15 - When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:16

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:16 - He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:17

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:17 - Then Elisha prayed and said, “O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:18

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:18 - And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the LORD and said, “Please strike this people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:19

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:19 - And Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” And he led them to Samaria.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:20

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:20 - As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O LORD, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So the LORD opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:21

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:21 - As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:22

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:22 - He answered, “You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:23

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:23 - So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.

Ben-hadad’s Siege of Samaria

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:24

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:24 - Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:25

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:25 - And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab[fn] of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:26

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:26 - Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:27

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:27 - And he said, “If the LORD will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:28

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:28 - And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:29

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:29 - So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:30

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:30 - When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:31

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:31 - and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:32

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:32 - Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 6:33

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 6:33 - And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”
ESV Footnotes
A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams; a kab was about 1 quart or 1 liter

2 Kings 7

Elisha Promises Food

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:1

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:1 - But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD: thus says the LORD, Tomorrow about this time a seah[fn] of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel,[fn] and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:2

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:2 - Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

The Syrians Flee

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:3

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:3 - Now there were four men who were lepers[fn] at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:4

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:4 - If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:5

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:5 - So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:6

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:6 - For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:7

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:7 - So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:8

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:8 - And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:9

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:9 - Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:10

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:10 - So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:11

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:11 - Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:12

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:12 - And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:13

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:13 - And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:14

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:14 - So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:15

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:15 - So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:16

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:16 - Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the LORD.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:17

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:17 - Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:18

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:18 - For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:19

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:19 - the captain had answered the man of God, “If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 7:20

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:20 - And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.
ESV Footnotes
A seah was about 7.7 quarts or 7.3 liters
A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13

2 Kings 8

The Shunammite’s Land Restored

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:1

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:1 - Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, and depart with your household, and sojourn wherever you can, for the LORD has called for a famine, and it will come upon the land for seven years.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:2

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:2 - So the woman arose and did according to the word of the man of God. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:3

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:3 - And at the end of the seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went to appeal to the king for her house and her land.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:4

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:4 - Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:5

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:5 - And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:6

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:6 - And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”

Hazael Murders Ben-hadad

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:7

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:7 - Now Elisha came to Damascus. Ben-hadad the king of Syria was sick. And when it was told him, “The man of God has come here,”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:8

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:8 - the king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God, and inquire of the LORD through him, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?’”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:9

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:9 - So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camels’ loads. When he came and stood before him, he said, “Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying, ‘Shall I recover from this sickness?’”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:10

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:10 - And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You shall certainly recover,’ but[fn] the LORD has shown me that he shall certainly die.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:11

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:11 - And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:12

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:12 - And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:13

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:13 - And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The LORD has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:14

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:14 - Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:15

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:15 - But the next day he took the bed cloth[fn] and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place.

Jehoram Reigns in Judah

(2Ch 21:1–20 )

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:16

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:16 - In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah,[fn] Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:17

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:17 - He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:18

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:18 - And 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 sight of the LORD.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:19

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:19 - Yet the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David his servant, since he promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons forever.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:20

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:20 - In his days Edom revolted from the rule of Judah and set up a king of their own.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:21

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:21 - Then Joram[fn] passed over to Zair with all his chariots and rose by night, and he and his chariot commanders struck the Edomites who had surrounded him, but his army fled home.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:22

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:22 - So Edom revolted from the rule of Judah to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:23

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:23 - Now the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:24

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:24 - So Joram slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Ahaziah his son reigned in his place.

Ahaziah Reigns in Judah

(2Ch 22:1–6 )

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:25

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:25 - In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, began to reign.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:26

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:26 - Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah; she was a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:27

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:27 - He also walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was son-in-law to the house of Ahab.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:28

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:28 - He went with Joram the son of Ahab to make war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth-gilead, and the Syrians wounded Joram.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 8:29

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 8:29 - And King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that the Syrians had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.
See the ESV Preface
ESV Footnotes
Some manuscripts say, ‘You shall certainly not recover,’ for
The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
Septuagint, Syriac lack when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah
Joram (also verses 23, 24) is an alternate spelling of Jehoram (son of Jehoshaphat), mentioned in verses 16, 25, 29
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016, 2025 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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