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 

The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease ¹  until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, ²  while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. ¹  If we wait until dawn, ²  we’ll be punished. ³  So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”

So King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside ¹  it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign. ² 

One day, ¹  as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, ²  his sons ³  Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. ⁴  They escaped to the land of Ararat; his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.

The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. ¹  The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, ²  “Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now.”

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people: ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. The day after tomorrow ¹  you will go up to the Lord’s temple.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-seventh ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  King Evil-Merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him ⁴  from prison.

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 

One day some men ¹  were burying a man when they spotted ²  a raiding party. So they threw the dead man ³  into Elisha’s tomb. When the body ⁴  touched Elisha’s bones, the dead man ⁵  came to life and stood on his feet.

Jehoiachin ¹  took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life.

She said to her husband, “Look, I’m sure ¹  that the man who regularly passes through here is a very special prophet. ² 

Sure enough, the next morning, at the time of the morning sacrifice, water came flowing down from Edom and filled the land. ¹ 

Then the king asked her, “What’s your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Hand over your son; we’ll eat him today and then eat my son tomorrow.’

So he picked him up and took him to his mother. He sat on her lap ¹  until noon and then died.

Some of the prophets ¹  said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you ²  is too cramped ³  for us.

While the king of Israel was passing by on the city wall, a woman shouted to him, “Help us, my master, O king!”

He said, “Why do you want to go see him today? It is not the new moon ¹  or the Sabbath.” She said, “Everything’s fine.” ² 

She told her mistress, “If only my master were in the presence of the prophet who is in Samaria! ¹  Then he would cure him of his skin disease.”

The Lord provided a deliverer ¹  for Israel and they were freed from Syria’s power. ²  The Israelites once more lived in security. ³