The Divided Kingdom

"Harness my chariot!" ordered Yoram. They got it ready. Then Yoram king of Isra'el and Achazyah king of Y'hudah, each in his chariot, went out to meet Yehu. They met him in the field of Navot the Yizre'eli.

When Yoram saw Yehu he said, "Are you coming in peace, Yehu?" He answered, "Peace? With your mother Izevel continuing all her cult prostitution and witchcraft? What a question!"

Yoram wheeled around and fled, shouting, "Treachery, Achazyah!"

Yehu drew his bow with all his strength and struck Yoram between the shoulder-blades; the arrow went through his heart, and he collapsed in his chariot.

"Pick him up," said Yehu to Bidkar his servant, "and throw him into the field of Navot the Yizre'eli; for remember how, when you and I were riding together after Ach'av his father, ADONAI pronounced this sentence against him:

'ADONAI says: "Yesterday I saw the blood of Navot and the blood of his sons." ADONAI also says: "I will pay you back in this field."' Therefore, pick him up; and throw him into the field, in keeping with what ADONAI said."

But when Achazyah the king of Y'hudah saw this, he fled on the road past Beit-HaGan. Yehu pursued him and ordered, "Strike him too in his chariot!" [So they struck him] at the Gur ascent, near Yivle'am. He fled to Megiddo, but there he died.

His servants carried him in a chariot to Yerushalayim and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the City of David.

It was in the eleventh year of Yoram the son of Ach'av that Achazyah had begun his rule over Y'hudah.

When Yehu reached Yizre'el, and Izevel heard of it, she put on eye make-up, fixed her hair and looked out the window.

As Yehu came through the city gate, she asked, "Are you here in peace, you Zimri, you murderer of your master?"

Looking up at the window he said, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three officers looked out toward him.

He said, "Throw her down!" So they threw her down. Some of her blood splashed onto the wall and the horses, and she was trampled underfoot.

He went in, ate and drank, and then said, "Deal with this accursed woman - bury her, because she's a king's daughter."

They went to bury her but found no more of her than her skull, feet and hands.

So they came back and told him. He said, "This is what ADONAI said through his servant Eliyahu from Tishbe: 'In the field of Yizre'el the dogs will eat the flesh of Izevel;

Izevel's corpse in the field of Yizre'el will be like dung on the ground, unrecognizable as Izevel.'"

There were seventy descendants of Ach'av in Shomron. Yehu wrote letters and sent them to Shomron to the rulers of Yizre'el, to the leaders, and to the guardians of Ach'av's sons. The letters said,

"You have with you your master's sons, also chariots and horses, as well as fortified cities and armor. So, as soon as this letter reaches you,

choose the best and most suitable of your master's sons, set him on his father's throne and fight for your master's dynasty."

They were panic-stricken and said, "If the other two kings couldn't withstand him, how will we?"

So the administrator of the palace, the governor of the city, the leaders and the children's guardians sent this message to Yehu: "We are your servants. We will do everything you ask us to; we won't appoint anyone king. Do as you see fit."

He wrote a second letter to them, which said, "If you are on my side, and if you are ready to obey my orders, then bring the heads of your master's sons to me in Yizre'el by this time tomorrow." Now the seventy sons of the king were with the prominent men who had raised them.

When the letter reached them, they seized the king's sons and killed them, all seventy of them, put their heads in baskets and sent them to Yehu in Yizre'el.

A messenger came and told him, "They have brought the heads of the king's sons." He said, "Leave them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning."