2 Kings Devotionals

One for each chapter. Want to test what you read? Take the 2 Kings quizzes.

2 Kings 1: Asking the Wrong God
Injured in a fall, King Ahaziah sends messengers to ask Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he will recover (1:2). The LORD intercepts them through Elijah with a question that…
2 Kings 2: The Same God After Elijah
Three times Elisha refuses to leave his master (2:2, 2:4, 2:6). He asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit, then watches Elijah go up into heaven in a whirlwind (2:9-11).…
2 Kings 3: A Small Thing for the LORD
Three kings march against Moab and run out of water in the desert (3:9). Jehoram of Israel assumes the LORD has brought them out here to hand them over to Moab (3:10, 3:13). It is…
2 Kings 4: Oil Until the Jars Ran Out
This chapter is a string of rescues for people at the end of their resources. A prophet's widow is about to lose her two sons to a creditor, and all she has is one jar of oil…
2 Kings 5: A Cure No Silver Could Buy
Naaman commands the army of Israel's enemy, and the text says it was the LORD who had given Aram victory through him (5:1). He also has leprosy. Help comes through a captive…
2 Kings 6: A Feast for the Enemy
The chapter opens with a small mercy: a borrowed axe head, lost in the river, is made to float (6:5-7). The king of Aram sends horses, chariots, and a great army to surround…
2 Kings 7: Good News Too Good to Keep
Samaria is starving under siege when Elisha announces that within a day flour and barley will sell cheaply at the city gate (7:1). The king's officer scoffs that it could not…
2 Kings 8: A Promise Outliving Its Kings
The Shunammite woman whose son Elisha raised returns after seven years away and asks the king for her house and land. She arrives at the very moment Gehazi is telling the king…
2 Kings 9: The God Who Saw Naboth
A young prophet anoints Jehu and runs (9:6-10). The commission is grim: the LORD will judge the house of Ahab for the blood of the prophets and servants of the LORD shed by…
2 Kings 10: Zeal Without a Whole Heart
Jehu finishes what he began. Ahab's seventy sons are killed, Ahaziah's relatives are slaughtered, and the servants of Baal are lured into their temple by a lie and put to the…
2 Kings 11: The Heir Kept Hidden
When Athaliah learns that her son Ahaziah is dead, she sets out to destroy the whole royal family (11:1). If she succeeds, David's line ends, and with it the promise God made to…
2 Kings 12: Honest Hands in God's House
Joash, the boy once hidden in the temple, grows up to repair it. He does what is right all the days the priest Jehoiada instructs him (12:2). When the priests are slow to fix the…
2 Kings 13: Gracious Because He Promised
Israel's kings in this chapter keep walking in the sins of Jeroboam, and the LORD hands Israel over to Aram again and again (13:2-3). Then Jehoahaz seeks the LORD's favor, and the…
2 Kings 14: Help When No One Helps
Amaziah of Judah begins well enough. When he punishes his father's murderers, he spares their sons, following the Law of Moses that each person dies for his own sin (14:5-6). But…
2 Kings 15: The Throne Behind the Thrones
This chapter races through a series of kings. In Judah, Azariah, also called Uzziah, does what is right, yet the high places remain and the LORD afflicts him with leprosy…
2 Kings 16: Servant of the Wrong King
Ahaz turns from the LORD, even sacrificing his son in the fire (16:2-3). When Aram and Israel besiege Jerusalem, he does not turn to the LORD. He calls himself the Assyrian king's…
2 Kings 17: Warned Again and Again
Samaria falls after a three-year siege, and the people of Israel are carried off to Assyria (17:5-6). Then the narrator stops to explain why. It happened because Israel sinned…
2 Kings 18: Trust Under Mockery
Hezekiah tears down the high places and even breaks up the bronze snake Moses had made, because the people had been burning incense to it (18:4). The text sums him up: he trusted…
2 Kings 19: A Letter Spread Before God
Hezekiah takes Sennacherib's threatening letter up to the house of the LORD and spreads it out before him (19:14). Then he prays. He begins not with the danger but with God:…
2 Kings 20: A Healing and a Blind Spot
Isaiah tells Hezekiah to prepare for death, because he will not recover. Hezekiah turns his face to the wall, prays, and weeps bitterly (20:1-3). Before Isaiah has even left the…
2 Kings 21: Grace Even for Manasseh
Manasseh undoes everything his father Hezekiah did. He rebuilds the high places, raises altars to Baal, builds altars to the starry host in both temple courtyards, and sets up a…
2 Kings 22: A Tender Heart Before the Word
Josiah becomes king as a boy and walks in all the ways of David (22:1-2). While the temple is being repaired, the high priest Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law in the house of the…
2 Kings 23: When Reform Is Not Enough
Josiah gathers the people and reads the Book of the Covenant aloud in the house of the LORD (23:2). He pledges to follow the LORD with all his heart and soul, and the people join…
2 Kings 24: Nothing Outside His Word
Judah's end comes in stages. Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon, and raiders from four nations come against Judah (24:1-2). Then young Jehoiachin surrenders, and Nebuchadnezzar…
2 Kings 25: Prison Clothes Laid Aside
The end comes as the prophets warned. Famine grips Jerusalem, the wall is breached, and King Zedekiah flees but is captured. His sons are killed, and he is taken blind and in…