4
They were panic-stricken and said, "If the other two kings couldn't withstand him, how will we?"
5
So the administrator of the palace, the governor of the city, the leaders and the children's guardians sent this message to Yehu: "We are your servants. We will do everything you ask us to; we won't appoint anyone king. Do as you see fit."
6
He wrote a second letter to them, which said, "If you are on my side, and if you are ready to obey my orders, then bring the heads of your master's sons to me in Yizre'el by this time tomorrow." Now the seventy sons of the king were with the prominent men who had raised them.
7
When the letter reached them, they seized the king's sons and killed them, all seventy of them, put their heads in baskets and sent them to Yehu in Yizre'el.
8
A messenger came and told him, "They have brought the heads of the king's sons." He said, "Leave them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning."
9
When morning came, he went out, stood before the people and said, "You are not responsible [for the deaths of these men]. Yes, I conspired against my master and killed him. But who killed all these?
10
Understand, then, that no part of ADONAI's word which ADONAI spoke concerning the dynasty of Ach'av falls to the ground; because ADONAI has done what he said through his servant Eliyahu."
11
So Yehu killed everyone who remained from the house of Ach'av in Yizre'el, all his leading men, his close friends and his cohanim, until not one of them was left alive.
12
Then he set out and went to Shomron. On the way he reached a shearing shed for shepherds,
13
where he encountered relatives of Achazyah king of Y'hudah. "Who are you?" he asked. "We're relatives of Achazyah," they answered, "and we're going down to pay our respects to the families of the king and of the queen mother."
14
"Take them alive," said Yehu. They took them alive, forty-two men, slaughtered them and threw them into the shearing shed's pit; he spared not one of them.