Ethan: Welcome To Immerse: The Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 200 and 30
when the King of Aram was at war with Israel.
He would confer with his officers and say, we will mobilize our
forces at such and such a place.
But immediately, Elisha, the man of God, would warn the King of Israel, do not
go near that place where the Ians are planning to mobilize their troops There.
So the King of Israel would send word to the place indicated by the man of God,
time and again, Elisha warned the king so that he would be on the alert there.
The King of Aram became very upset over this.
He called his officers together and demanded, which of you is the
traitor who has been informing the King of Israel of my plans?
It is not us.
My Lord the king, one of the officers replied.
Elisha, the prophet in Israel tells the King of Israel, even the words you
speak in the privacy of your bedroom.
Go and find out where he is.
The king commanded so I can send troops to seize him.
And the report came back.
Elisha is at Dothan.
So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots
and horses to surround the city.
When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and
went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere.
Oh, sir, what will we do now?
The young man cried to Elisha.
Don't be afraid.
Elisha told him for There are more on our side than on theirs.
Then Elisha prayed.
Oh, Lord, open his eyes and let him see.
The Lord opened the young man's eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that
the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
As the aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, oh
Lord, please make them blind.
So the Lord struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.
Then Elisha went out and told them, you have come the wrong way.
This isn't the right city.
Follow me and I will take you to the man you are looking for.
And he led them to the city of Samaria.
As soon as they had entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, oh Lord.
Now open their eyes and let them see.
So the Lord opened their eyes and they discovered that they
were in the middle of Samaria.
When the King of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha,
my father, should I kill them?
Should I kill them?
Of course not.
Elisha replied.
Do we kill prisoners of war?
Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master.
So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their master.
After that, the Ian Raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.
Sometime later, however, king Ben Hayad of Aram mustered his
entire army and Besiege Samaria.
As a result, there was a great famine in the city.
The siege lasted so long that a donkey's head sold for 80 pieces
of silver and a cup of dove's dung sold for five pieces of silver.
One day, as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called
to him, please help me, my Lord, the king.
He answered.
If the Lord doesn't help you, what can I do?
I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.
But then the king asked, what is the matter?
She replied, this woman said to me, come on, let's eat your son today.
Then we will eat my son tomorrow.
So we cooked my son and ate him.
Then the next day I said to her, kill your son so we can eat him.
But she has hidden her son.
When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair, and as the king
walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing burlap
under his robe next to his skin.
May God strike me and even kill me if I don't separate
Elisha's head from his shoulders.
This very day, the king vowed Elijah was sitting in his house with the
elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him.
But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, A murderer
has sent a man to cut off my head.
When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out.
We will soon hear his master's steps following him.
While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived and the king
said, all this misery is from the Lord.
Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?
Elisha replied, listen to this message from the Lord.
This is what the Lord says by this time.
Tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice, flour will cost only one
piece of silver and 12 quarts of barley.
Grain will cost only one piece of silver.
The officer assisting the king said to the man of God, that couldn't happen even
if the Lord opened the windows of heaven.
But Elisha replied, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but
you won't be able to eat any of it.
Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates.
Why should we sit here waiting to die?
They asked each other, we will starve if we stay here.
But with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there.
So we might as well go out and surrender to the Ian Army if they
let us live so much the better.
But if they kill us, we would've died anyway.
So at Twilight, they set out for the camp of the Ians.
But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there.
For the Lord had caused the Ian army to hear the clatter of speeding
chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army.
Approaching the King of Israel has hired the hit tights and Egyptians to attack us.
They cried to one another, so they panicked and ran into the
night abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything
else as they fled for their lives.
When the men with leprosy arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into
one tent after another, eating and drinking wine, and they carried off
silver and gold and clothing and hid it.
Finally, they said to each other, this is not right.
This is a day of good news and we aren't sharing it with anyone.
If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us.
Come on, let's go back and tell the people at the palace.
So they went back to the city and told the gatekeepers what had happened.
We went out to the Aian camp, they said, and no one was there.
The horses and donkeys were tethered, and the tents were all in order, but
there wasn't a single person around.
Then the gatekeepers shouted the news to the people in the palace.
The king got out of bed in the middle of the night and told his
officers, I know what has happened.
The Ians know we are starving.
So they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields.
They're expecting us to leave the city and then they will take
us alive and capture the city.
One of his officers replied, we had better send out scouts to check into this.
Let them take five of the remaining horses.
If something happens to them, it will be no worse than if they stay
here and die with the rest of us.
So two chariots with horses were prepared.
And the king sent scouts to see what had happened to the Aramean army.
They went all the way to the Jordan River following a trail of clothing
and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their mad rush to escape.
The scouts returned and told the king about it.
Then the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the Aramean camp.
So it was true that six quartz of choice flour were sold that
day for one piece of silver.
And 12 quarts of barley grain were sold for one piece of silver,
just as the Lord had promised.
The king appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate,
but he was knocked down and trampled to death as the people rushed out.
So everything happened exactly as the man of God had predicted.
When the king came to his house, the man of God had said to the king, by
this time, tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quartz of choice,
flour will cost one piece of silver.
And 12 quarts of barley grain will cost one piece of silver.
The king's officer had replied that couldn't happen even if the
Lord opened the windows of heaven.
And the man of God had said, you will see it happen with your own eyes, but
you won't be able to eat any of it.
And so it was for the people, trampled him to death at the gate,
Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought back to life.
Take your family and move to some other place.
For the Lord has called for a famine on Israel that will last for seven years.
So the woman did as the man of God instructed, she took her
family and settled in the land of the Philistines for seven years.
The after the famine ended, she returned from the land of the Philistines
and she went to see the king about getting back her house and land.
As she came in, the king was talking with Gaza, the servant of the man of God.
The king had just said, tell me some stories about the
great things Elisha has done.
And Gaza was telling the king about the time Elisha had
brought a boy back to life.
At that very moment, the mother of the boy walked in to make her appeal
to the king about her house and land.
Look, my Lord the king za exclaimed.
Here is the woman now, and this is her son.
The very one Elisha brought back to life.
Is this true?
The King asked her and she told him the story, so he directed one of his officials
to see that everything she had lost was restored to her, including the value
of any crops that had been harvested.
During her absence, Elijah went to Damascus, the capital of Aram,
where King Ben Hayad lay sick.
When someone told the king that the man of God had come, the king said to
Zeel, take a gift to the man of God.
Then tell him to ask the Lord, will I recover from this illness?
Soze loaded down 40 camels with the finest products of Damascus as a gift for Elisha.
He went to him and said, your servant Ben Hayad, the King of Arum, has sent me to
ask, will I recover from this illness?
And Elisha replied, go and tell him.
You will surely recover.
But actually the Lord has shown me that he will surely die.
Elisha stared at Hazael with a fixed gaze until Hazael became uneasy.
Then the man of God started weeping.
What's the matter?
My Lord?
Hazael asked him.
Elisha replied, I know the terrible things you will do to the people of Israel.
You will burn their fortified cities, kill their young men with the sword.
Dash their little children to the ground and rip open their pregnant women.
Haze responded.
How could a nobody like me ever accomplish such great things?
Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me that you are going to be the king of Aram.
When haze left Elisha and went back, the king asked him, what did Elisha tell you?
And Hazel replied.
He told me that you will surely recover.
But the next day, Hazael took a blanket, soaked it in water.
And held it over the king's face until he died.
Then Hazael became the next king of Aram.
Horam son of King, Jehoshaphat of Judah began to rule over Judah
in the fifth year of the Reign of Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel.
Jehoram was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned
in Jerusalem eight years.
But Horam followed the example of the Kings of Israel and was
as wicked as King Ahab for he had married one of Ahab's daughters.
So Horam did what was evil in the Lord's sight, but the Lord did not
want to destroy Judah for he had promised his servant David, that
his descendants would continue to rule shining like a lamp forever.
During Jem's reign, the Edomites revolted against Judah.
And crowned their own king.
So Horam went with all his chariots to attack the town of Zayar.
The Edam.
I surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he went out at night and
attacked them undercover of darkness.
But Jem's army deserted him and fled to their homes.
So Edam has been independent from Judah to this day.
The town of Lyna also revolted about that same time.
The rest of the events in RA's Reign and everything he did are recorded in the
book of the history of the Kings of Judah.
When Horam died, he was buried with his ancestors in the city of David.
Then his son Aah, became the next king.
This concludes today's Immer reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.