Second Book of Kings 1

¹ After the death of Ahab Moab rebelled against Israel.

² Ahaziah had fallen from the balcony of his upper room in Samaria, and was lying ill; so he sent messengers, saying to them, ‘Go and consult Baalzebub the god of Ekron and ask whether I shall recover from my illness’.

³ But the angel of Yahweh said to Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Up! Go and intercept the messengers of the king of Samaria. Say to them, “Is there no God in Israel, for you to go and consult Baalzebub the god of Ekron?

⁴ Yahweh says this: The bed you have got into you will not get out of; you are certainly going to die.”‘ And Elijah set out.

⁵ The messengers returned to the king, who said, ‘Why have you come back?’

⁶ ‘A man came to meet us’ they answered ‘and said, “Go back to the king who sent you and tell him: Yahweh says this: Is there no God in Israel for you to go and consult Baalzebub the god of Ekron? For this, the bed you have got into you will not get out of; you are certainly going to die.”‘

⁷ He said, ‘This man who met you and said all this, what was he like?’

⁸ ‘A man wearing a hair cloak’ they answered ‘and a leather loincloth.’ ‘It was Elijah the Tishbite’ he said.

⁹ He then sent a captain of fifty soldiers with his contingent to Elijah, whom they found sitting on top of the hill; the captain went up to him and said, ‘Man of God, the king says, “Come down”‘.

¹⁰ Elijah answered the captain, ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy both you and your fifty men’. And fire came down from heaven and destroyed him and his fifty men.

¹¹ The king sent a second captain of fifty to him, again with fifty men, and he too went up and said, ‘Man of God, this is the king’s order: “Come down at once”‘.

¹² Elijah answered them, ‘If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy both you and your fifty men’. And fire came down from heaven and destroyed him and his fifty men.

¹³ Then the king sent a third captain of fifty to him, with another fifty men. The third captain of fifty came up to Elijah, fell on his knees before him and pleaded with him. ‘Man of God,’ he said ‘let my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours have some value in your eyes.

¹⁴ Fire has fallen from heaven and destroyed two captains of fifties, but let my life have some value now in your eyes.’

¹⁵ The angel of Yahweh said to Elijah, ‘Go down with him; do not be afraid of him’. He rose and accompanied him down to the king,

¹⁶ and said to him, ‘Yahweh says this, “Since you sent messengers to consult Baalzebub the god of Ekron, the bed you have got into you will not get out of; you are certainly going to die”‘

¹⁷ And, in accordance with the word of Yahweh that Elijah had uttered, he died. Since he had no son, his brother Jehoram succeeded him, in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah.

¹⁸ The rest of the history of Ahaziah, and his career, is not all this recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel?