23. Jehu and Jehonadab went into the temple, and Jehu said to the crowd, “Look around and make sure that only the worshippers of Baal are here. No one who worships the Lord is allowed in.”
24. Then they began to offer sacrifices to Baal.Earlier, Jehu had ordered eighty soldiers to wait outside the temple. He had warned them, “I will get all these worshippers here, and if any of you let even one of them escape, you will be killed instead!”
25. As soon as Jehu finished offering the sacrifice, he told the guards and soldiers, “Come in and kill them! Don't let anyone escape.” They slaughtered everyone in the crowd and threw the bodies outside. Then they went back into the temple
26. and carried out the image of Baal. They burnt it
27. and broke it into pieces, then they completely destroyed Baal's temple. And since that time, it's been nothing but a public toilet.
28. That's how Jehu stopped the worship of Baal in Israel.
29. But he did not stop the worship of the gold statues of calves at Dan and Bethel that Jeroboam had made for the people to worship.
30. Later the Lord said, “Jehu, you have done right by destroying Ahab's entire family, just as I had planned. So I will make sure that the next four kings of Israel will come from your own family.”
31. But Jehu did not completely obey the commands of the Lord God of Israel. Instead, he kept doing the sinful things that Jeroboam had caused the Israelites to do.
32. In those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel's territory. King Hazael of Syria defeated the Israelites and took control
33. of the regions of Gilead and Bashan east of the River Jordan and north of the town of Aroer near the River Arnon. This was the land where the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh had once lived.