Nevertheless, the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in My sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”
You are to strike down the house of your master Ahab so that I may avenge the blood shed by the hand of Jezebel — the blood of My servants the prophets and of all the servants of the Lord.
That day belongs to the Lord, the God of Hosts, a day of vengeance to avenge Himself against His adversaries. The sword will devour and be satisfied; it will drink its fill of their blood, because it will be a sacrifice to the Lord, the God of Hosts, in the northern land by the Euphrates River.
“There is a voice of fugitives and those who escape from the land of Babylon announcing in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, the vengeance for His temple.
I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands.
“Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites because he was zealous among them with My zeal, so that I did not destroy the Israelites in My zeal.
It will be a covenant of perpetual priesthood for him and his future descendants, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
“Curse Meroz,” says the Angel of the Lord, “Bitterly curse her inhabitants, for they did not come to help the Lord, to help the Lord against the mighty warriors.”