f called it Semareon, from Semer, who sold him the mountain
whereon he built it. Now Omri was no way different from those kings
that reigned before him, but that he grew worse than they, for they
all sought how they might turn the people away from God by their daily
wicked practices; and oil that account it was that God made one of them
to be slain by another, and that no one person of their families should
remain. This Omri also died in Samaria and Ahab his son succeeded him.

6. Now by these events we may learn what concern God hath for the
affairs of mankind, and how he loves good men, and hates the wicked, and
destroys them root and branch; for many of these kings of Israel, they
and their families, were miserably destroyed, and taken away one by
another, in a short time, for their transgression and wickedness; but
Asa, who was king of Jerusalem, and of the two tribes, attained,
by God's blessing, a long and a blessed old age, for his piety and
righteousness, and died happily, when he had reigned forty and one
years; and when he was dead, his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him in the
government. He was born of Asa's wife Azubah. And all men allowed that
he followed the works of David his forefather, and this both in courage
and piety; but we are not obliged now to speak any more of the affairs
of this king.

CHAPTER 13. How Ahab When He Had Taken Jezebel To Wife Became More
Wicked Than All The Kings That Had Been Before Him; Of The Actions Of
The Prophet Elijah, And What Befell Naboth.

1. Now Ahab the king of Israel dwelt in Samaria, and held the government
for twenty-two years; and made no alteration in the conduct of the kings
that were his predecessors, but only in such things as were of his own
invention for the worse, and in his most gross wickedness. He imitated
them in their wicked courses, and in their injurious behavior towards
God, and more especially he imitated the transgression of Jeroboam;
for he worshipped the heifers that he had made; and he contrived other
absurd objects of worship besides those heifers: he also took to wife
the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Tyrians and Sidonians, whose name
was Jezebel, of whom he learned to worship her own gods. This woman
was active and bold, and fell into so great a degree of impurity and
madness, that she built a temple to the god of the Tyrians, Which
they call Belus, and planted a grove of all sorts of trees; she also
appointed priests and false prop