Study Desk

Then a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, "This is what the LORD, the God of your father David says: 'Because ^(C1)you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat ^(C2)and the ways of Asa king of Judah,

but ^(C1)have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to be unfaithful ^(C2)as the house of Ahab was unfaithful, and you ^(C3)have also killed your brothers, ^(F1)your own family, who were better than you,

behold, the LORD is going to strike your people, your sons, your wives, and all your possessions with a great plague;

and ^(C1)you will suffer ^(F1)severe sickness, a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out because of the sickness, day by day.'"

Then ^(C1)the LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and ^(C2)the Arabs who ^(F1)bordered the Ethiopians;

and they came against Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions found in the king's house together with his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except ^(F1)(C1)Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.

So after all this the LORD struck him ^(C1)in his intestines with an incurable sickness.

Now it came about in the course of time, at the end of two years, that his bowels came out because of his sickness, and he died in great pain. And his people did not make a funeral fire for him like ^(C1)the fire for his fathers.