(1 Kings 22:1–12)
1
And Jehoshaphat has riches and honor in abundance, and joins affinity to Ahab,
2
and goes down at the end of [certain] years to Samaria to [visit] Ahab, and Ahab sacrifices sheep and oxen in abundance for him and for the people who [are] with him, and persuades him to go up to Ramoth-Gilead.
3
And Ahab king of Israel says to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Do you go with me [to] Ramoth-Gilead?” And he says to him, “As I—so you, and as your people—my people, and [we go] with you into the battle.”
4
And Jehoshaphat says to the king of Israel, “Please seek the word of YHWH this day.”
5
And the king of Israel gathers the prophets, four hundred men, and says to them, “Do we go to Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or do I refrain?” And they say, “Go up, and God gives [it] into the hand of the king.”
6
And Jehoshaphat says, “[Is there] not still a prophet of YHWH here, and we seek from him?”
7
And the king of Israel says to Jehoshaphat, “[There is] still one man to seek YHWH from him, and I have hated him, for he is not prophesying of good concerning me, but of evil [for] all his days, he [is] Micaiah son of Imlah”; and Jehoshaphat says, “Do not let the king say so.”
8
And the king of Israel calls to a certain officer and says, “Hurry Micaiah son of Imlah.”
9
And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah are sitting, each on his throne, clothed with garments, and they are sitting in a threshing-floor at the opening of the Gate of Samaria, and all the prophets are prophesying before them.
10
And Zedekiah son of Chenaanah makes horns of iron for himself and says, “Thus said YHWH:
11
With these you push Aram until you have consumed them.” And all the prophets are prophesying so, saying, “Go up [to] Ramath-Gilead and prosper, and YHWH has given [it] into the hand of the king.”
Micaiah Prophesies against Ahab
(1 Kings 22:13–28)
12
And the messenger who has gone to call for Micaiah has spoken to him, saying, “Behold, the words of the prophets [as] one mouth [are] good toward the king, and please let your word be like one of theirs: and you have spoken good.”
13
And Micaiah says “YHWH lives, surely that which my God says, I speak it.”
14
And he comes to the king, and the king says to him, “Micaiah, do we go to Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or do I refrain?” And he says, “Go up, and prosper, and they are given into your hand.”
15
And the king says to him, “How many times am I adjuring you that you speak to me only truth in the Name of YHWH?”
16
And he says, “I have seen all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd, and YHWH says, There are no masters for these, they each return to his house in peace.”
17
And the king of Israel says to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not say to you [that] he does not prophesy good concerning me, but rather of evil?”
18
And [Micaiah] says, “Therefore, hear a word of YHWH: I have seen YHWH sitting on His throne, and all the host of the heavens standing on His right and His left;
19
and YHWH says, Who entices Ahab king of Israel, and he goes up and falls in Ramoth-Gilead? And this speaker says thus, and that speaker thus.
20
And the spirit goes out, and stands before YHWH, and says, I entice him; and YHWH says to him, With what?
21
And he says, I go out, and have become a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of all his prophets. And He says, You entice, and also, you are able; go out and do so.
22
And now, behold, YHWH has put a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of these prophets of yours, and YHWH has spoken calamity concerning you.”
23
And Zedekiah son of Chenaanah comes near and strikes Micaiah on the cheek, and says, “Where [is] this—the way the spirit [from] YHWH passed over from me to speak with you?”
24
And Micaiah says, “Behold, you see in that day that you enter into the innermost chamber to be hidden.”
25
And the king of Israel says, “Take Micaiah, and turn him back to Amon head of the city, and to Joash son of the king,
26
and you have said, Thus said the king: Put this [one] in the house of restraint, and cause him to eat bread of oppression, and water of oppression, until my return in peace.”
27
And Micaiah says, “If you certainly return in peace, YHWH has not spoken by me”; and he says, “Hear, O peoples, all of them!”
Ahab’s Defeat and Death
(1 Kings 22:29–40)
28
And the king of Israel goes up—and Jehoshaphat king of Judah—to Ramoth-Gilead;
29
and the king of Israel says to Jehoshaphat to disguise himself, and to go into battle, “And you, put on your garments.” And the king of Israel disguises himself, and they go into battle.
30
And the king of Aram has commanded the heads of the charioteers whom he has, saying, “You do not fight with small or with great, except with the king of Israel by himself.”
31
And it comes to pass at the heads of the charioteers seeing Jehoshaphat, that they have said, “He is the king of Israel,” and they turn around against him to fight, and Jehoshaphat cries out, and YHWH has helped him, and God entices them from him;
32
indeed, it comes to pass, at the heads of the charioteers seeing that it has not been the king of Israel—they turn back from after him.
33
And a man has drawn with a bow in his simplicity, and strikes the king of Israel between the joinings and the coat of mail, and he says to the charioteer, “Turn your hand, and you have brought me out of the camp, for I have become [gravely] sick.”
34
And the battle increases on that day, and the king of Israel has been propped up in the chariot in front of Aram until the evening, and he dies at the time of the going in of the sun.
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