Old Testament◆2 Kings 10·Jehu Demands Seventy Royal Heads and Has Them Piled at the City Gate
2 Kings 10:6–8

Jehu Demands Seventy Royal Heads and Has Them Piled at the City Gate

Jehu sends a letter to the guardians of Ahab's seventy sons in Samaria: if you are on my side, bring me the heads of your master's sons by tomorrow. The city elders, terrified, slaughter all seventy princes — sons of a king — and send the heads in baskets. Jehu orders them heaped in two piles at the city gate overnight. In the morning he stands before the crowd and absolves himself: 'You are righteous. It is I who conspired against my master and killed him — but who struck down all these?' He has delegated the massacre and now presents it as the fulfillment of prophecy.

— Lectio —

Jehu Demands Seventy Royal Heads and Has Them Piled at the City Gate

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Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, even the elders, and to those who brought up Ahab’s sons, saying,

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