The Woman from Shunem Returns

¹Now Elisha had told the woman who lived in Shunem, whose son he had brought back to life, that the Lord was sending a famine on the land, which would last for seven years, and that she should leave with her family and go and live somewhere else.

²She had followed his instructions and had gone with her family to live in Philistia for the seven years.

³At the end of the seven years she returned to Israel and went to the king to ask that her house and her land be restored to her.

⁴She found the king talking with Gehazi, Elisha's servant; the king wanted to know about Elisha's miracles.

⁵While Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had brought a dead person back to life, the woman made her appeal to the king. Gehazi said to him, “Your Majesty, here is the woman and here is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!”

⁶In answer to the king's question, she confirmed Gehazi's story, and so the king called an official and told him to give back to her everything that was hers, including the value of all the crops that her fields had produced during the seven years she had been away.

Elisha and King Benhadad of Syria

⁷Elisha went to Damascus at a time when King Benhadad of Syria was sick. When the king was told that Elisha was there,

⁸he said to Hazael, one of his officials, “Take a gift to the prophet and ask him to consult the Lord to find out whether or not I am going to get well.”

⁹So Hazael loaded forty camels with all kinds of the finest products of Damascus and went to Elisha. When Hazael met him, he said, “Your servant King Benhadad has sent me to ask you whether or not he will recover from his sickness.”

¹⁰Elisha answered, “The Lord has revealed to me that he will die; but go to him and tell him that he will recover.”

¹¹Then Elisha stared at him with a horrified look on his face until Hazael became ill at ease. Suddenly Elisha burst into tears.

¹²“Why are you crying, sir?” Hazael asked. “Because I know the horrible things you will do against the people of Israel,” Elisha answered. “You will set their fortresses on fire, slaughter their finest young men, batter their children to death, and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹³“How could I ever be that powerful?” Hazael asked. “I'm a nobody!” “The Lord has shown me that you will be king of Syria,” Elisha replied.

¹⁴Hazael went back to Benhadad, who asked him, “What did Elisha say?” “He told me that you would certainly get well,” Hazael answered.

¹⁵But on the following day Hazael took a blanket, soaked it in water, and smothered the king. And Hazael succeeded Benhadad as king of Syria.

King Jehoram of Judah

¹⁶In the fifth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab as king of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat became king of Judah

¹⁷at the age of thirty-two, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eight years.

¹⁸His wife was Ahab's daughter, and like the family of Ahab he followed the evil ways of the kings of Israel. He sinned against the Lord,

¹⁹but the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, because he had promised his servant David that his descendants would always continue to rule.

²⁰During Jehoram's reign Edom revolted against Judah and became an independent kingdom.

²¹So Jehoram set out with all his chariots to Zair, where the Edomite army surrounded them. During the night he and his chariot commanders managed to break out and escape, and his soldiers scattered to their homes.

²²Edom has been independent of Judah ever since. During this same period the city of Libnah also revolted.

²³Everything else that Jehoram did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.

²⁴Jehoram died and was buried in the royal tombs in David's City, and his son Ahaziah succeeded him as king.

King Ahaziah of Judah

²⁵In the twelfth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab as king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram became king of Judah

²⁶at the age of twenty-two, and he ruled in Jerusalem for one year. His mother was Athaliah, the daughter of King Ahab and granddaughter of King Omri of Israel.

²⁷Since Ahaziah was related to King Ahab by marriage, he sinned against the Lord, just as Ahab's family did.

²⁸King Ahaziah joined King Joram of Israel in a war against King Hazael of Syria. The armies clashed at Ramoth in Gilead, and Joram was wounded in battle.

²⁹He returned to the city of Jezreel to recover from his wounds, and Ahaziah went there to visit him.

The Lord Condemns Israel for Idol Worship

¹The Lord says, “Sound the alarm! Enemies are swooping down on my land like eagles! My people have broken the covenant I made with them and have rebelled against my teaching.

²Even though they call me their God and claim that they are my people and that they know me,

³they have rejected what is good. Because of this their enemies will pursue them.

⁴“My people chose kings, but they did it on their own. They appointed leaders, but without my approval. They took their silver and gold and made idols—for their own destruction.

⁵I hate the gold bull worshiped by the people of the city of Samaria. I am furious with them. How long will it be before they give up their idolatry?

⁶An Israelite craftsman made the idol, and it is not a god at all! The gold bull worshiped in Samaria will be smashed to pieces!

⁷When they sow the wind, they will reap a storm! A field of grain that doesn't ripen can never produce any bread. But even if it did, foreigners would eat it up.

⁸Israel has become like any other nation and is as useless as a broken pot.

⁹Stubborn as wild donkeys, the people of Israel go their own way. They have gone off to seek help from Assyria and have paid other nations to protect them.

¹⁰But now I am going to gather them together and punish them. Soon they will writhe in pain when the emperor of Assyria oppresses them.

¹¹“The more altars the people of Israel build for removing sin, the more places they have for sinning!

¹²I write down countless teachings for the people, but they reject them as strange and foreign.

¹³They offer sacrifices to me and eat the meat of the sacrifices. But I, the Lord, am not pleased with them, and now I will remember their sin and punish them for it; I will send them back to Egypt!

¹⁴“The people of Israel have built palaces, but they have forgotten their own Maker. The people of Judah have built fortified cities. But I will send fire that will burn down their palaces and their cities.”

Hosea Announces Punishment for Israel

¹People of Israel, stop celebrating your festivals like pagans. You have turned away from your God and have been unfaithful to him. All over the land you have sold yourselves like prostitutes to the god Baal and have loved the grain you thought he paid you with!

²But soon you will not have enough grain and olive oil, and there will be no wine.

³The people of Israel will not remain in the Lord's land, but will have to go back to Egypt and will have to eat forbidden food in Assyria.

⁴In those foreign lands they will not be able to make wine offerings to the Lord or bring their sacrifices to him. Their food will defile everyone who eats it, like food eaten at funerals. It will be used only to satisfy their hunger; none of it will be taken as an offering to the Lord's Temple.

⁵And when the time comes for the appointed festivals in honor of the Lord, what will they do then?

⁶When the disaster comes and the people are scattered, the Egyptians will gather them up—gather them for burial there at Memphis! Their treasures of silver and the places where their homes once stood will be overgrown with weeds and thorn bushes.

⁷The time for punishment has come, the time when people will get what they deserve. When that happens, Israel will know it! “This prophet,” you say, “is a fool. This inspired man is insane.” You people hate me so much because your sin is so great.

⁸God has sent me as a prophet to warn his people Israel. Yet wherever I go, you try to trap me like a bird. Even in God's Temple the people are the prophet's enemies.

⁹They are hopelessly evil in what they do, just as they were at Gibeah. God will remember their sin and punish them for it.

Israel's Sin and Its Consequences

¹⁰The Lord says, “When I first found Israel, it was like finding grapes growing in the desert. When I first saw your ancestors, it was like seeing the first ripe figs of the season. But when they came to Mount Peor, they began to worship Baal and soon became as disgusting as the gods they loved.

¹¹Israel's greatness will fly away like a bird, and there will be no more children born to them, no more women pregnant, no more children conceived.

¹²But even if they did bring up children, I would take them away and not leave one alive. When I abandon these people, terrible things will happen to them.”

¹³Lord, I can see their children being hunted down and killed.

¹⁴What shall I ask you to do to these people? Make their women barren! Make them unable to nurse their babies!

The Lord's Judgment on Israel

¹⁵The Lord says, “All their evildoing began in Gilgal. It was there that I began to hate them. And because of the evil they have done, I will drive them out of my land. I will not love them any more; all their leaders have rebelled against me.

¹⁶The people of Israel are like a plant whose roots have dried up and which bears no fruit. They will have no children, but even if they did, I would kill the children so dear to them.”

The Prophet Speaks about Israel

¹⁷The God I serve will reject his people, because they have not listened to him. They will become wanderers among the nations.

¹The people of Israel were like a grapevine that was full of grapes. The more prosperous they were, the more altars they built. The more productive their land was, the more beautiful they made the sacred stone pillars they worship.

²The people whose hearts are deceitful must now suffer for their sins. God will break down their altars and destroy their sacred pillars.

³These people will soon be saying, “We have no king because we did not fear the Lord. But what could a king do for us anyway?”

⁴They utter empty words and make false promises and useless treaties. Justice has become injustice, growing like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

⁵The people who live in the city of Samaria will be afraid and will mourn the loss of the gold bull at Bethaven. They and the priests who serve the idol will weep over it. They will wail when it is stripped of its golden splendor.

⁶The idol will be carried off to Assyria as tribute to the great emperor. The people of Israel will be disgraced and put to shame because of the advice they followed.

⁷Their king will be carried off, like a chip of wood on water.

⁸The hilltop shrines of Aven, where the people of Israel worship idols, will be destroyed. Thorns and weeds will grow up over their altars. The people will call out to the mountains, “Hide us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”

The Lord Pronounces Judgment on Israel

⁹The Lord says, “The people of Israel have not stopped sinning against me since the time of their sin at Gibeah. So at Gibeah war will catch up with them.

¹⁰I will attack this sinful people and punish them. Nations will join together against them, and they will be punished for their many sins.

¹¹“Israel was once like a well-trained young cow, ready and willing to thresh grain. But I decided to put a yoke on her beautiful neck and to harness her for harder work. I made Judah pull the plow and Israel pull the harrow.

¹²I said, ‘Plow new ground for yourselves, plant righteousness, and reap the blessings that your devotion to me will produce. It is time for you to turn to me, your Lord, and I will come and pour out blessings upon you.’

¹³But instead you planted evil and reaped its harvest. You have eaten the fruit produced by your lies. “Because you trusted in your chariots and in the large number of your soldiers,

¹⁴war will come to your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed. It will be like the day when King Shalman destroyed the city of Betharbel in battle, and mothers and their children were crushed to death.

¹⁵That is what will happen to you, people of Bethel, because of the terrible evil that you have done. As soon as the battle begins, the king of Israel will die.”

A Prayer for Help against Enemies

¹I have complete confidence, O God! I will sing and praise you! Wake up, my soul!

²Wake up, my harp and lyre! I will wake up the sun.

³I will thank you, O Lord, among the nations. I will praise you among the peoples.

⁴Your constant love reaches above the heavens; your faithfulness touches the skies.

⁵Show your greatness in the sky, O God, and your glory over all the earth.

⁶Save us by your might; answer my prayer, so that the people you love may be rescued.

⁷From his sanctuary God has said, “In triumph I will divide Shechem and distribute Sukkoth Valley to my people.

⁸Gilead is mine, and Manasseh too; Ephraim is my helmet and Judah my royal scepter.

⁹But I will use Moab as my washbowl, and I will throw my sandals on Edom, as a sign that I own it. I will shout in triumph over the Philistines.”

¹⁰Who, O God, will take me into the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?

¹¹Have you really rejected us? Aren't you going to march out with our armies?

¹²Help us against the enemy; human help is worthless.

¹³With God on our side we will win; he will defeat our enemies.