Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho. ¹ 

The king of Assyria was told, ¹  “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people ²  because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.”

He deported Jehoiachin from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with the king’s mother and wives, his eunuchs, and the high-ranking officials of the land. ¹ 

He conquered all the land of Gilead, including the territory of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, extending all the way from the Aroer in the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan. ¹ 

Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this place to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March ¹  up against this land and destroy it.’”’” ² 

So the king of Assyria ordered, “Take back one of the priests whom you ¹  deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” 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.

You will defeat every fortified city and every important ¹  city. You must chop down ²  every productive ³  tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones.” ⁴ 

So he threw a big banquet ¹  for them and they ate and drank. Then he sent them back ²  to their master. After that no Syrian raiding parties again invaded the land of Israel.

Finally ¹  the Lord rejected Israel ²  just as he had warned he would do ³  through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

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

I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands. ¹  With the soles of my feet I dried up all the rivers of Egypt.’

This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of ¹  Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped ²  other gods;

Instead you must worship the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt by his great power and military ability; ¹  bow down to him and offer sacrifices to him.

The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River.

I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey.”

Now Elisha went back to Gilgal, while there was famine in the land. Some of the prophets were visiting him ¹  and he told his servant, “Put the big pot on the fire ²  and boil some stew for the prophets.” ³ 

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the city has a good location, as our ¹  master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn’t produce crops.” ² 

From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five ¹  of the king’s advisers ²  who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ³  for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city.

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.