CHAPTER 22
1 Forsooth the dwellers of Jerusalem ordained Ahaziah, the youngest son of Jehoram, to be king for him; for the thieves of Arabia, that felled into the castles [or tents]of Judah, had slain all his greater or elder brethren, which were begotten before him. And Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, reigned.
2 Ahaziah was of two and forty or twenty years old, when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem; the name of his mother was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri.
3 But he entered by the way of the house of Ahab; for his mother compelled him to do evil.
4 Therefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as the house of Ahab; for they were counsellors to him into his perishing, after the death of his father;
5 and he went in the counsel of them. And he went with Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, into battle against Hazael, king of Syria, into Ramoth of Gilead. And men of Syria wounded Joram;
6 which turned again for to be healed in Jezreel; for he had taken many wounds in the foresaid battle. Therefore Ahaziah, king of Judah, the son of Jehoram, went down to visit Joram, the son of Ahab, that was sick in Jezreel;
7 for it was God’s will against Ahaziah, that he came to Joram. And when he was come, he went out with him against Jehu, the son of Nimshi, whom God anointed, that he should do away the house of Ahab.
8 Therefore when Jehu destroyed the house of Ahab, he found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, that ministered to him; and he killed them.
9 And he sought that Ahaziah, and caught him hid in Samaria, and after that he was brought to Jehu, Jehu killed him; and they buried him, for he was the son of Jehoshaphat, that had sought God in all his heart. And none hope was more, that any of the generation of Ahaziah should reign.
10 And Athaliah, the mother of Ahaz-iah, saw that her son was dead, and she rose up, and killed all the king’s generation of the house of Jehoram.
11 Forsooth Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from the midst of the sons of the king, when they were slain; and she hid him with his nurse in a closet of beds [or bed place]. For Jehoshabeath, that hid him, was the daughter of king Jehoram, and wife of Jehoiada, the bishop, and the sister of Ahaziah; and therefore Athaliah killed not her.
12 Therefore he was hid with them in the house of God six years, in which Athaliah reigned on the land.