THE CAPTAINS SLAIN BY FIRE.



A FEW years after Ahab took Naboth's vineyard from him, he went out, contrary to the counsel of the Lord, to make war with the Syrians. While engaged in battle, he was shot with an arrow, and carried off the field in a chariot At evening he died, and his body was brought to Samaria. Now the king's blood ran out into the chariot, and when a man went to wash the chariot in the pool of Samaria, the dogs licked up the blood of Ahab, just as the Lord had said they should.

After the death of Ahab, his son Ahaziah reigned in his stead. He was a very bad man He not only worshiped the golden calves, which Jeroboam had set up, but he worshiped Baal also, and led the people into idolatry.

One day King Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber, and was sick. 

And he sent messengers to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to inquire whether he should recover from his sickness. ''But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron? Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die."

Then the messengers went back and told the king what had happened, and the king asked how the man looked. "And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." And the king said, "It is Elijah the Tishbite."

Then the king sent a captain, with a company of fifty men, to take Elijah, and bring him to Samaria. When the captain and his men came to Elijah, they found him sitting on a hill; and the captain said, "Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain of fifty with his fifty. And he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. And Elijah answered and said unto them, If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy-fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty."

After this, the king sent another captain with his fifty, and when he came near to Elijah he fell on his knees, and said, ''O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, and the lives of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. . . . And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him; be not afraid of him." Then Elijah went down to the king, and told him that the Lord had said that he must surely die. So he died according to the word of the Lord, and Jehoram reigned in his stead.