2 Kings 8  Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

8 Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, Arise and go with your household and sojourn wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine, and moreover, it will come upon the land for seven years.

² So the woman arose and did as the man of God had said. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.

³ At the end of the seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went to appeal to the king for her house and land.

⁴ The king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me all the great things Elisha has done.

⁵ And as Gehazi 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 land. And Gehazi said, My lord O king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life.

⁶ When the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed to her a certain officer, saying, Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land even until now.

⁷ Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad king of Syria was sick; and he was told, The man of God has come here.

⁸ And the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand and go meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease?

⁹ So Hazael went to meet Elisha and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus, forty camel loads, and came and stood before him and said, Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, asking, Shall I recover from this disease?

¹⁰ And Elisha said, Go, say to him, You shall certainly recover; but the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die.

¹¹ Elisha stared steadily at him until Hazael was embarrassed. And the man of God wept.

¹² And Hazael said, Why do you weep, my lord? He answered, Because I know the evil that you will do to the Israelites. You will burn their strongholds, slay their young men with the sword, dash their infants in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.

¹³ And Hazael said, What is your servant, only a dog, that he should do this monstrous thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Syria.

¹⁴ Then [Hazael] departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, What did Elisha say to you? And he answered, He told me you would surely recover.

¹⁵ But the next day Hazael took the bedspread and dipped it in water and spread it on [the Syrian king’s] face, so that he died. And Hazael reigned in his stead.

¹⁶ In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram 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 He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for [Athaliah] the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁹ Yet, for David His servant’s sake, the Lord would not destroy Judah, for He promised to give him and his sons a lamp forever.

²⁰ In his days, Edom revolted from the rule of Judah and set up a king over themselves.

²¹ So Jehoram [of Judah] went over to Zair with all his chariots. He and his chariot commanders rose up by night and slew the Edomites who had surrounded them; and [escaping] his army fled home.

²² So Edom revolted from the rule of Judah to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.

²³ The rest of the acts of Jehoram, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁴ Jehoram slept with his fathers and was buried with [them] in the City of David. Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.

²⁵ In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram 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. His mother’s name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

²⁷ He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab, for his father was son-in-law of Ahab.

²⁸ Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.

²⁹ King Joram returned to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.