King Ahab wins a war_against Ben-Hadad
1King Ben-Hadad of Aram called all his soldiers to come to him. There were 32 kings with him and he had a lot of war-chariots and horses. He went to attack Samaria and he put up his tents around the city. 2Then he sent messengers to Ahab, king_of_Israel, 3and he said to him: ‘Ben-Hadad says: I want to have all your silver and gold. I want to have the best of your wives and your children.’ 4The king_of_Israel answered and said: ‘Your_Majesty, it is good. You can have me and everything that I have.’
5But later the messengers came back again and said to Ahab: ‘Ben-Hadad says: I told you that I want to have your silver and your gold, your wives and your sons. 6But now I say: Tomorrow at this time I will send my officers to you. They will go into your palace and all the houses of your officials. They will look for everything that you love and they will take it and bring it to me.’
7Then the king_of_Israel called all the leaders of the land and he said to them: ‘Listen to what this man says. He wants to make trouble. When he asked me to give him my wives and children, my silver and my gold, I did not say no to him.’ 8All the leaders and everyone said to the king: ‘Do not listen to him, and don't do what he asks.’ 9Then the king told the messengers of Ben-Hadad: ‘Tell him: Your_Majesty, I will do what you asked me the first time, but what you ask me now I will not do.’ The messengers of Ben-Hadad went back and they told him what Ahab had said. 10Ben-Hadad sent a message back to Ahab. He said: ‘I pray that the gods will help me. I will destroy the city of Samaria so that it will be only dust, and the dust will not be enough for my men to carry it away with their hands.’ 11The king_of_Israel answered him and said: ‘If someone wants to start a war, he must not boast before the time. He must wait until the war is over, and then he can boast.’
12Ben-Hadad and the other kings were drinking in their tents when he heard what Ahab had said. Then he told his officers: ‘You must prepare to go to war.’ They prepared to attack the city.
13Then a prophet came to Ahab, the king_of_Israel. The prophet said: ‘The Lord says: Do you see this big army? I will help you defeat them today, and then you will know that I am the Lord.’ 14But Ahab said: ‘How will the Lord do this? Whom will He use?’ And the prophet said: ‘The Lord said He will do it with the young soldiers of the governors of the provinces.’ Ahab asked the prophet: ‘Who must start the war?’ And the Lord said: ‘You must start the war.’
15Ahab called the young soldiers of the governors of the provinces and told them to be ready. There were 232 men and all the men of Israel were 7 000 men. 16They went out of the city at noon while Ben-Hadad and 32 kings were drinking wine and getting drunk in the tents. These 32 kings were his friends and they helped him to go to war. 17First the young soldiers of the governors went out of the city. Ben-Hadad sent men to find out what was happening and his men told him: ‘There are soldiers who have come out of Samaria.’ 18Ben-Hadad said: ‘If they come to make peace and not war, you must catch them alive. And if they want to go to war, you must also catch them alive.’
19The young soldiers of the governors came out of the city and the other soldiers were behind them. 20Each soldier of Ahab, the king_of_Israel, killed the man who had come to fight against him. The other soldiers of the Aramean army turned_around and ran away, and the Israelite soldiers followed_and_chased them. Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, fled on a horse with the other men on horses. 21The king_of_Israel went out of the city and he won the war_against Ben-Hadad's men on horses and war-chariots. They killed many soldiers of Aram.
Ahab defeats Ben-Hadad again
22The prophet went to Ahab again and he said to him: ‘You must get more soldiers and you must prepare because next spring the king of Aram will come again to attack you.’ 23The officers of Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, said to him: ‘The gods of the Israelites are mountain gods. That is why they were too strong for us, because we made war on the mountains. But if we fight them where there are no mountains, where the ground is flat, we will win the war_against them. We will be stronger than they are. 24This is what you must do: Don't let the 32 kings lead the armies. Choose officers to lead the men. 25You must get more soldiers in the place of your soldiers who died and you must get more horses and war-chariots, like you had before. We must go to war_against them on flat ground, not in the mountains, and then we will be stronger than they are.’
Ben-Hadad listened to them and he did what they said. 26The next spring Ben-Hadad told all the Aramean soldiers to prepare for war. They went to the city of Aphek to fight against Israel. 27The Israelite soldiers also prepared and they took enough food with them. They walked to the Aramean soldiers and they camped near the tents of the Arameans. The tents of the Israelite soldiers were only 2 small camps, like 2 small flocks of goats. But there were many Aramean soldiers, and their tents covered a big part of the land. 28Then a man of God came to the king_of_Israel and said to him: ‘The Lord says: The Arameans said that I am a mountain god, not a god of valleys and flat ground. I will help you defeat them with all their many soldiers, and then you will know that I am the Lord.’
29The 2 groups of soldiers camped opposite each other for 7 days. On the 7th day the war started and the Israelites killed 100 000 Aramean soldiers who were on foot on the first day. 30The other Arameans ran away and went into the city of Aphek. Then the walls of the city fell over and killed 27 000 of their men who were left. Ben-Hadad tried to run away into the city to hide in a room. 31His officers told him: ‘Listen, they have told us that the kings_of_Israel have mercy. We must take off our clothes and put on sack-cloth and put ropes around our heads and we must go to the king_of_Israel. Maybe he will not kill you.’ 32Then they put on sack-cloth and they put ropes around their heads and they went to the king_of_Israel and said to him: ‘Your servant Ben-Hadad says: “Please don't kill me. Let me live.” ’ Then Ahab asked: ‘Is Ben-Hadad still_alive? He is my brother.’ 33The men saw that Ahab was friendly and they immediately said: ‘Yes, Ben-Hadad is your brother.’ Ahab said: ‘Tell him to come here.’
When Ben-Hadad came to him, Ahab said he must get into the war-chariot with him. 34Ben-Hadad said to Ahab: ‘Ahab, I give you back the towns and cities that my father took from your father, and you can put up shops in Damascus to buy and to sell, as my father did in Samaria.’ Ahab told Ben-Hadad that he would let him go free if he made an agreement with him. Ben-Hadad did it and Ahab let him go.
A prophet tells Ahab that the Lord will punish him
35One of the prophets said to his friend: ‘You must hit me.’ It was the Lord who told him to say that. But his friend did not want to hit him, and he said no. 36Then the prophet said to his friend: ‘You have not done what the Lord said. Therefore, when you go away from me, a lion will kill you.’ And when the friend went away from the prophet, a lion attacked him and killed him. 37The prophet came to another friend and he said to him: ‘You must hit me.’ The man hit him very hard and wounded him. 38Then the prophet stood by the road and waited for the king. The prophet covered his face with a cloth so that people could not see who he was. 39When the king passed him, the prophet shouted and he asked the king to help him. He said: ‘I went to war, and someone caught one of the enemy soldiers and told me: “Keep this man here. Guard him, because if he escapes and flees, you will die in his place, or you will have to pay one talent of silver.” 40I was busy with something and when I looked again, the man was no longer there. He was gone.’ The king_of_Israel said to the prophet: ‘You have said yourself what must happen to you. You are guilty.’
41Then the prophet took off the cloth from his face and the king_of_Israel saw that he was one of the prophets. 42Then the prophet said to the king: ‘The Lord says: I wanted Ben-Hadad to die, but you have let him go free. Therefore you will now die in his place, and your people will die in the place of his people.’
43The king_of_Israel was upset and very angry. He went to his home in Samaria.
