If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ¹  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ²  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ³  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁴ 

The Lord had caused the Syrian camp to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a large army. Then they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has paid the kings of the Hittites and Egypt to attack us!”

The Ammonites marched out and were deployed for battle at the entrance of the city gate, while the men from Aram Zobah, Rehob, Ish-tob, and Maacah were by themselves in the field.

Zedekiah son of Kenaanah made iron horns and said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘With these you will gore Syria until they are destroyed.’”

When the king of Moab realized he was losing the battle, ¹  he and 700 swordsmen tried to break through and attack ²  the king of Edom, but they failed.

But the prophet sent this message to the king of Israel, “Make sure you don’t pass through this place because Syria is invading there.”

So they picked two horsemen and the king sent them out to track the Syrian army. ¹  He ordered them, “Go and find out what’s going on.” ² 

So they tracked them ¹  as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. ²  The scouts ³  went back and told the king.

Then the people went out and looted the Syrian camp. A seah ¹  of finely milled flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said they would. ² 

The next day Hazael ¹  took a piece of cloth, dipped it in water, and spread it over Ben Hadad’s ²  face until he died. Then Hazael replaced him as king.

Zedekiah son of Kenaanah made iron horns and said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘With these you will gore Syria until they are destroyed!’”

Here is why this will be so: ¹  Before the child knows how to reject evil and choose what is right, the land ²  whose two kings you fear will be desolate. ³ 

the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, ¹  the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,

When the Israelites cried out for help to the Lord, he ¹  raised up a deliverer for the Israelites who rescued ²  them. His name was Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. ³ 

He brought the letter to king of Israel. It read: “This is a letter of introduction for my servant Naaman, ¹  whom I have sent to be cured of his skin disease.”

So they went and called out to the gatekeepers ¹  of the city. They told them, “We entered the Syrian camp and there was no one there. We didn’t even hear a man’s voice. ²  But the horses and donkeys are still tied up, and the tents remain up.” ³ 

Messengers ¹  arrived and reported to Jehoshaphat, “A huge army is attacking you from the other side of the Dead Sea, ²  from the direction of Edom. ³  Look, they are in Hazezon Tamar (that is, En Gedi).”

Syria from the east, and the Philistines from the west, they gobbled up Israelite territory. ¹  Despite all this, his anger does not subside, and his hand is ready to strike again. ² 

The prophet ¹  visited the king of Israel and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Syrians said, “The Lord is a god of the mountains and not a god of the valleys,” I will hand over to you this entire huge army. ²  Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, ¹  “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.’”