11. He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael was embarrassed. Then the man of God began to weep.
12. ‘Why is my lord weeping?’ asked Hazael.‘Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,’ he answered. ‘You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.’
13. Hazael said, ‘How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?’‘The Lord has shown me that you will become king of Aram,’ answered Elisha.
14. Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, ‘What did Elisha say to you?’ Hazael replied, ‘He told me that you would certainly recover.’
15. But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.
16. In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began his reign as king of Judah.
17. He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years.
18. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
19. Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants for ever.
20. In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king.