2
As soon as you receive these letters, ye that have your master’s sons, and chariots, and horses, and fenced cities, and armour,
3
Choose the best, and him that shall please you most of your master’s sons, and set him on his father’s throne, and fight for the house of your master.
4
But they were exceedingly afraid, and said: Behold two kings could not stand before him, and how shall we be able to resist?
5
Therefore they that were over the king’s house, and the rulers of the city, and the ancients, and the bringers up of the children, sent to Jehu, saying: We are thy servants: whatsoever thou shalt command us we will do; we will not make us any king: do thou all that pleaseth thee.
6
And he wrote letters the second time to them, saying: If you be mine, and will obey me, take the heads of the sons of your master, and come to me to Jezrahel by tomorrow at this time. Now the king’s sons, being seventy men, were brought up with the chief men of the city.
7
And when the letters came to them, they took the king’s sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezrahel.
8
And a messenger came, and told him, saying: They have brought the heads of the king’s sons. And he said: Lay ye them in two heaps by the entering in of the gate until the morning.
9
And when it was light, he went out, and standing, said to all the people: You are just: if I conspired against my master, and slew him; who hath slain all these?
10
See therefore now that there hath not fallen to the ground any of the words of the Lord, which the Lord spoke concerning the house of Achab, and the Lord hath done that which he spoke in the hand of his servant Elias.
11
So Jehu slew all that were left of the house of Achab in Jezrahel, and all his chief men, and his friends, and his priests, till there were no remains left of him.
12
And he arose, and went to Samaria: and when he was come to the shepherds’ cabin in the way,