The inhabitants of the city complained to Elisha, “The site of the city is fine indeed, as my lord can see, but the water is bad and the land sterile.”
he went out to the spring and threw salt into it, saying, “Thus says the Lord: I have purified this water. Never again shall death or sterility come from it.”
Therefore, as I live— oracle of the Lord of hosts— the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom, the Ammonites like Gomorrah: A field of weeds, a salt pit, a waste forever. The remnant of my people shall plunder them, the survivors of my nation dispossess them.
That entire day Abimelech fought against the city. He captured it, killed the people who were in it, and demolished the city itself, sowing it with salt.