It was after Achab’s death that the Moabites threw off their allegiance to Israel.

It went ill with Ochozias; he had a fall from the window of his upper room at Samaria. And he sent messengers to consult Beelzebub, the god they worship at Accaron, whether he might hope to recover from his sickness.

But an angel of the Lord bade Elias go to meet these messengers from Samaria on their way, and ask them, Has Israel no God of its own, that you should go and consult Beelzebub, the god of Accaron?

Here, then, is the Lord’s message to Ochozias, Never shalt thou leave the bed thou liest on; thou art doomed to die. So Elias went on his errand;

and Ochozias’ messengers returned to their master. When he asked why they had returned,

they told him how one had met them and bidden them go back to the king who sent them; of the Lord’s message, too, that rebuked him for sending to consult Beelzebub, god of Accaron, as if Israel had no God of its own, and doomed him to die where he lay.

Then he would know what was the look of the man who had met them and so spoken.

A shaggy fellow, they told him, with a skin girt about his loins. And he said, It was Elias the Thesbite.

Thereupon the king sent a captain at the head of fifty men to find him. And this captain, climbing the mountain on which the prophet then dwelt, bade him come down in the king’s name.

If prophet I am, Elias answered, let fire come down from heaven to consume thee and thy men with thee; and with that, came fire from heaven, and he and his fifty were consumed.

So the king sent another captain with fifty men more, and he too would have the prophet come down in the king’s name.

If prophet I am, said he, let fire come down from heaven to consume thee and thy men with thee; and once more, captain and men were consumed by fire.

But when a third captain was sent out with his men, he came and knelt before Elias in entreaty; My lord prophet, he said, have some regard to my life, and the lives of these that follow me.

Two other captains the fire from heaven has consumed, and fifty men with either of them; on my life, I pray thee, have pity.

Then the angel of the Lord said to Elias, Go down with them; thou hast nothing to fear. So he set out to accompany the man into the royal presence.

And he told the king, Thou, who hast sent to consult Beelzebub, Accaron’s god, as though God in Israel there were none, shalt never leave the bed thou liest on; thou art doomed to die.

And die he did, as Elias had foretold in the Lord’s name, with never a son to follow him; the throne passed to his brother Joram. This was in the second year of Josaphat’s son, Joram, king of Juda.

What else Ochozias did, all his history, is to be found in the Annals of the kings of Israel.