<p class="bodytext">When the messengers returned to the king,<n id="1" /> he asked them, &#8220;Why have you returned?&#8221;

The watchman reported, &#8220;He reached them, but hasn&#8217;t started back. The one who drives the lead chariot drives like Jehu son of Nimshi;<n id="1" /> he drives recklessly.&#8221;

When they received the letter, they seized the king&#8217;s sons and executed all seventy of them.<n id="1" /> They put their heads in baskets and sent them to him in Jezreel.

and she said to them: &#8220;This is what the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel says: &#8216;Say this to the man who sent you to me:

Elijah replied to them,<n id="1" /> &#8220;If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!&#8221; Fire from God<n id="2" /> came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.p>

This made the king of Syria upset.<n id="1" /> So he summoned his advisers<n id="2" /> and said to them, &#8220;One of us must be helping the king of Israel.&#8221;<n id="3" />

<p class="bodytext">When Jehu rejoined<n id="1" /> his master&#8217;s servants, they<n id="2" /> asked him, &#8220;Is everything all right?<n id="3" /> Why did this madman visit you?&#8221; He replied, &#8220;Ah, it&#8217;s not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says.&#8221;<n id="4" />

Jehoiada the priest ordered the officers of the units of hundreds, who were in charge of the army,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Bring her outside the temple to the guards.<n id="2" /> Put the sword to anyone who follows her.&#8221; The priest gave this order because he had decided she should not be executed in the <sc>Lordsc>&#8217;s temple.<n id="3" />

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

But the chief adviser said to them, &#8220;My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you.<n id="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.&#8221;<n id="2" />p>

<p class="bodytext">He wrote them a second letter, saying, &#8220;If you are really on my side and are willing to obey me,<n id="1" /> then take the heads of your master&#8217;s sons and come to me in Jezreel at this time tomorrow.&#8221;<n id="2" /> Now the king had seventy sons, and the prominent<n id="3" /> men of the city were raising them.