When the messengers returned to the king, ¹  he asked them, “Why have you returned?”

The watchman reported, “He reached them, but hasn’t started back. The one who drives the lead chariot drives like Jehu son of Nimshi; ¹  he drives recklessly.”

When they received the letter, they seized the king’s sons and executed all seventy of them. ¹  They put their heads in baskets and sent them to him in Jezreel.

and she said to them: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Say this to the man who sent you to me:

Elijah replied to them, ¹  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ²  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

This made the king of Syria upset. ¹  So he summoned his advisers ²  and said to them, “One of us must be helping the king of Israel.” ³ 

When Jehu rejoined ¹  his master’s servants, they ²  asked him, “Is everything all right? ³  Why did this madman visit you?” He replied, “Ah, it’s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.” ⁴ 

Jehoiada the priest ordered the officers of the units of hundreds, who were in charge of the army, ¹  “Bring her outside the temple to the guards. ²  Put the sword to anyone who follows her.” The priest gave this order because he had decided she should not be executed in the Lord’s temple. ³ 

But the Lord had mercy on them and felt pity for them. ¹  He extended his favor to them ²  because of the promise he had made ³  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has been unwilling to destroy them or remove them from his presence to this very day. ⁴ 

But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ¹  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.” ² 

He wrote them a second letter, saying, “If you are really on my side and are willing to obey me, ¹  then take the heads of your master’s sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow.” ²  Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent ³  men of the city were raising them.