“Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ¹  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ²  and how I have carried out your will.” ³  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁴ 

On the seventh ¹  day of the fifth month, ²  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ³  who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem. ⁴ 

He followed in the footsteps of his father ¹  and worshiped and bowed down to the disgusting idols ²  which his father had worshiped. ³ 

Jehu assembled all the people and said to them, “Ahab worshiped ¹  Baal a little; Jehu will worship ²  him with great devotion. ³ 

They worshiped ¹  the disgusting idols ²  in blatant disregard of the Lord’s command. ³ 

They were worshiping ¹  the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

These nations are worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their idols; their sons and grandsons do just as their fathers have done, to this very day.

They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God; they made two metal calves and an Asherah pole, bowed down to all the stars in the sky, ¹  and worshiped ²  Baal.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for Baal and made an Asherah pole just like King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ¹  and worshiped ²  them.

Raiding parties went out from Syria and took captive from the land of Israel a young girl, who became a servant to Naaman’s wife.

The stew was poured out ¹  for the men to eat. When they ate some of the stew, they cried out, “Death is in the pot, O prophet!” They could not eat it.

The Lord was with him; he succeeded in all his endeavors. ¹  He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to submit to him. ² 

(Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) ¹ 

Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we might seek the Lord’s direction?” ¹  One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah’s servant.” ² 

Now a wife of one of the prophets ¹  appealed ²  to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. ³  Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.”