King James Version2 Kings3

2 Kings

1 Now Je­ho­ram the son of Ahab be­gan to reign over Is­rael in Samaria the eigh­teenth year of Je­hoshaphat king of Ju­dah, and reigned twelve years. 2 And he wrought evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his fa­ther, and like his moth­er: for he put away the im­age of Baal that his fa­ther had made. 3 Nev­er­the­less he cleaved unto the sins of Jer­oboam the son of Nebat, which made Is­rael to sin; he de­part­ed not there­from. 4 And Me­sha king of Moab was a sheep­mas­ter, and ren­dered unto the king of Is­rael an hun­dred thou­sand lambs, and an hun­dred thou­sand rams, with the wool. 5 But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab re­belled against the king of Is­rael. 6 And king Je­ho­ram went out of Samaria the same time, and num­bered all Is­rael. 7 And he went and sent to Je­hoshaphat the king of Ju­dah, say­ing, The king of Moab hath re­belled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to bat­tle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my peo­ple as thy peo­ple, and my hors­es as thy hors­es. 8 And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he an­swered, The way through the wilder­ness of Edom. 9 So the king of Is­rael went, and the king of Ju­dah, and the king of Edom: and they fetched a com­pass of sev­en days' jour­ney: and there was no wa­ter for the host, and for the cat­tle that fol­lowed them. 10 And the king of Is­rael said, Alas! that the LORD hath called these three kings to­geth­er, to de­liv­er them into the hand of Moab! 11 But Je­hoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD, that we may en­quire of the LORD by him? And one of the king of Israel's ser­vants an­swered and said, Here is El­isha the son of Shaphat, which poured wa­ter on the hands of Eli­jah. 12 And Je­hoshaphat said, The word of the LORD is with him. So the king of Is­rael and Je­hoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. 13 And El­isha said unto the king of Is­rael, What have I to do with thee? get thee to the prophets of thy fa­ther, and to the prophets of thy moth­er. And the king of Is­rael said unto him, Nay: for the LORD hath called these three kings to­geth­er, to de­liv­er them into the hand of Moab. 14 And El­isha said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, be­fore whom I stand, sure­ly, were it not that I re­gard the pres­ence of Je­hoshaphat the king of Ju­dah, I would not look to­ward thee, nor see thee. 15 But now bring me a min­strel. And it came to pass, when the min­strel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him. 16 And he said, Thus saith the LORD, Make this val­ley full of ditch­es. 17 For thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not see wind, nei­ther shall ye see rain; yet that val­ley shall be filled with wa­ter, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cat­tle, and your beasts. 18 And this is but a light thing in the sight of the LORD: he will de­liv­er the Moabites also into your hand. 19 And ye shall smite ev­ery fenced city, and ev­ery choice city, and shall fell ev­ery good tree, and stop all wells of wa­ter, and mar ev­ery good piece of land with stones. 20 And it came to pass in the morn­ing, when the meat of­fer­ing was of­fered, that, be­hold, there came wa­ter by the way of Edom, and the coun­try was filled with wa­ter. 21 And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gath­ered all that were able to put on ar­mour, and up­ward, and stood in the bor­der. 22 And they rose up ear­ly in the morn­ing, and the sun shone upon the wa­ter, and the Moabites saw the wa­ter on the oth­er side as red as blood: 23 And they said, This is blood: the kings are sure­ly slain, and they have smit­ten one an­oth­er: now there­fore, Moab, to the spoil. 24 And when they came to the camp of Is­rael, the Is­raelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled be­fore them: but they went for­ward smit­ing the Moabites, even in their coun­try. 25 And they beat down the cities, and on ev­ery good piece of land cast ev­ery man his stone, and filled it; and they stopped all the wells of wa­ter, and felled all the good trees: only in Kirha­raseth left they the stones there­of; how­beit the slingers went about it, and smote it. 26 And when the king of Moab saw that the bat­tle was too sore for him, he took with him sev­en hun­dred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not. 27 Then he took his el­dest son that should have reigned in his stead, and of­fered him for a burnt of­fer­ing upon the wall. And there was great in­dig­na­tion against Is­rael: and they de­part­ed from him, and re­turned to their own land.