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¹ THEN Elisha said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, Arise and go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you can; for the LORD has called for a famine; and it shall come upon the land for seven years.² So the woman arose and did according to the word of the prophet of God; and she went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.³ And at the end of the seven years, when the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, she went forth to cry to the king for her house and for her field.⁴ And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the prophet of God, saying, Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.⁵ And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored a dead body to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life cried to the king for her house and for her field. And Gehazi said, My lord, O king, this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.⁶ And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed to her a certain officer and said to him, Restore all that was hers and all the produce of her field from the day that she left the land even until now.

⁷ And Elisha came to Damascus; and Bar-hadad the king of Aram was sick; and it was told him, saying, The prophet of God has come here.⁸ And the king said to Hazael, Take a present with you and go to meet the prophet of God, and inquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?⁹ So Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels burden, and came and stood before him and said to him, Your son Bar-hadad king of Aram has sent me to you, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?¹⁰ And Elisha said to him, Go, say to him, You shall surely recover; but the LORD has shown me that he shall surely die.¹¹ Then the prophet of God wept.¹² And Hazael said, Why does my lord weep? And Elisha said to him, Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strongholds you will set on fire, their young men you will slay with the sword, and you will dash their children against the ground and rip up their women with child.¹³ And Hazael said, But what, is your servant a dog, that he should do this terrible thing? And Elisha answered, The LORD has shown me that you shall be king over Aram.¹⁴ So Hazael departed from Elisha and came to his master; and his master said to him, What did Elisha say to you? And he answered, Thus he said to me: You shall surely recover.¹⁵ And on the morrow, Hazael took a thick cloth and dipped it in water and spread it on the kings face, so that he died; and Hazael reigned in his stead.

¹⁶ And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel. Joram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign.¹⁷ He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.¹⁸ And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab; for the sister of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the sight of the LORD.¹⁹ Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servants sake, as he promised to him that he would give an heir to his children all the days.²⁰ In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah and set up a king over themselves.²¹ So Joram went over to Zair, and all the chariots with him; and he rose by night to smite the Edomites who had surrounded him and his commanders with chariots; but the people fled to their tents.²² So Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah even to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.²³ And the rest of the acts of Joram and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.²⁴ And Joram slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.

²⁵ In the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of Joram king of Judah began to reign.²⁶ Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. And his mothers name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri king of Israel.²⁷ And he walked in the way of the house of Ahab, and did evil in the sight of the LORD, as did the house of Ahab; for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab.²⁸ And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to war against Hazael the king of Aram at Ramath-gilead; and the Arameans wounded Joram.²⁹ And Joram the son of Ahab went back to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramath, when he fought against Hazael king of Aram. And Ahaziah the son of Joram king of Judah went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.