6-7. Then Jehu wrote a second letter:If you are on my side and are willing to follow my orders, here’s what you do: Decapitate the sons of your master and bring the heads to me by this time tomorrow in Jezreel.The king’s sons numbered seventy. The leaders of the city had taken responsibility for them. When they got the letter, they took the king’s sons and killed all seventy. Then they put the heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.
8. A messenger reported to Jehu: “They’ve delivered the heads of the king’s sons.”He said, “Stack them in two piles at the city gate until morning.”
9-10. In the morning Jehu came out, stood before the people, and addressed them formally: “Do you realize that this very day you are participants in God’s righteous workings? True, I am the one who conspired against my master and assassinated him. But who, do you suppose, is responsible for this pile of skulls? Know this for certain: Not a single syllable that God spoke in judgment on the family of Ahab is canceled; you’re seeing it with your own eyes—God doing what, through Elijah, he said he’d do.”
11. Then Jehu proceeded to kill everyone who had anything to do with Ahab’s family in Jezreel—leaders, friends, priests. He wiped out the entire lot.
12-13. That done, he brushed himself off and set out for Samaria. Along the way, at Beth Eked (Binding House) of the Shepherds, he met up with some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah.Jehu said, “Who are you?”They said, “We’re relatives of Ahaziah and we’ve come down to a reunion of the royal family.”
14. “Grab them!” ordered Jehu. They were taken and then massacred at the well of Beth Eked. Forty-two of them—no survivors.