After many generations of useless and/or unremarkable Judean kings, we finally get to Hezekiah. Hezekiah bravely stood up to the ever growing Assyrian Empire even when they threatened his people that they'd be forced to eat their own shit and drink their own piss (which is my new favorite Bible verse, by the way.)

Hezekiah didn't really do much, but the Angel of Death came out of retirement and murdered 185,000 Assyrians. So Hezekiah stood victorious.

This episode covers a few of the lesser known kings of Israel and Judah and all of their notable accomplishment. Jehu killed a bunch of Ahaziah's family, including his mom, Queen Jezebel, before turning the Baal Zebub temple into a public toilet. Joash bribed the Arameans not to invade. Jehoahaz accomplished literally nothing. Jehoash shot an arrow out of a window. Only the most important stuff made it into this book!

It also covers the rise of Hazael from Aram Damascus who regicided his way right into power and stayed there for what seems like forever.

This also covers the end of Elisha's life, where his corpse raised a random guy from the dead... but couldn't do the same for itself.

Elisha heals a nearby General of leprosy only to have his army attack shortly there after. Elisha staves off this war for a while by making a bunch of soldiers go blind and then feeding them a succulent meal, but they eventually decide to attack again and lay siege to Samaria (which is part of Israel.)

While Samaria was under siege, a donkey's head was selling for 2 pounds of silver and even pigeon shit was selling for a couple ounces of silver. At least one baby was eaten and everything was terrible.

After King Ahab dies, his son Ahaziah takes over, falls through a hole in the floor, and also dies. Elijah dries up the Jordan River for seemingly no reason and then gets swept up to heaven in a chariot made out of fire, leaving his protege Elisha in charge of... various prophet tasks.

Elisha's first act as new prophet is to also dry up the Jordan River for no reason, purifying Jericho's water supply, and then having some bears kill 42 little kids for making fun of his bald spot.

Elisha did later go on to resurrect a kid from the dead, save two kids from slavery, and save a whole village from starvation... but still. What rough start.

King Ahab's wife Jezebel starts killing all the prophets of God in favor of her pagan religions, so Elijah decides to have a contest between himself and all of the pagan prophets for whose god can set a bull on fire. Elijah wins, kills all the pagan prophets, and then runs faster than a horse.

When Jezebel finds out about this, she decides to kill him. Elijah gets out of town and appoints a new prophet, Elisha, to take his place.

Ahab and Jezebel keep fucking everything up and eventually Ahab dies.

A bunch of kings came and went and Judah and Israel remained at war. Every king decided to try other gods out for size except Asa, who God rewarded with a lethal foot disease.

Eventually a new guy named Elijah came around doing all kinds of weird shit like being fed by ravens, giving ladies endless flour, and doing... questionable things to raise children from the dead.

Solomon's (exactly) 1,000 wives and concubines get him to cheat on God with other gods, even that one horrible god named Molek. This pissed God off and he decided to punish by making his empire fall apart after he died.

When Rehoboam, Solomon's son, takes the reigns, he promises everyone that he's going to make their lives more miserable and their workload heavier than his father had. Surprisingly they revolted and followed a new leader named Jeroboam.

Jeroboam started a new religion featuring a golden calf and took 11 of the 12 tribes under his rule.

Solomon finished his temple and then decided to outdo the house he made for God by building himself an even crazier, fancier building. Taking 13 years to build and almost doubling the size of the crazy gold temple, Solomon's palace was just ridiculous.

Once his palace was finished, he let God move into his temple and then they came to an agreement: Solomon and his descendants don't cheat on God with all the other gods and God doesn't destroy their whole nation. To celebrate, Solomon slaughtered enough animals to fill an olympic sized swimming pool with blood.

Word spread of his wealth and even the Queen of Sheba came all the way out from Yemen to witness how wealthy Solomon was. The fame of his wealth only produced more wealth and suddenly everything in his palace was made of gold and he was shipping in spices and baboons from Africa, lumber from Lebanon, and taking control of the whole fucking region.