I will demand blood for life. I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person, and I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person’s life.
When the leaders received the letter, they took the king’s sons and killed all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.
Joash became king of Judah in Jehu’s seventh year as king of Israel, and he ruled for forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah, and she was from Beersheba.
In the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama from the king’s family, came with ten men and killed Gedaliah. They also killed the men of Judah and Babylon who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah.
Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he ruled one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.
When Ahaziah king of Judah saw this, he ran away toward Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, saying, “Shoot Ahaziah, too!” Ahaziah was wounded in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam. He got as far as Megiddo but died there.
In the seventh month Ishmael son of Nethaniah and ten of his men came to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. (Nethaniah was the son of Elishama.) Now Ishmael was a member of the king’s family and had been one of the officers of the king of Judah. While they were eating a meal with Gedaliah at Mizpah,
After they left, an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, because Herod is starting to look for the child so he can kill him. Stay in Egypt until I tell you to return.”
When Herod saw that the wise men had tricked him, he was furious. So he gave an order to kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem and in the surrounding area who were two years old or younger. This was in keeping with the time he learned from the wise men.
He went to Ophrah, the hometown of his father, and murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Gideon. He killed them all on one stone. But Gideon’s youngest son, Jotham, hid from Abimelech and escaped.