The long slide. Elijah goes out in a chariot of fire and Elisha takes up his mantle, working miracles up and down the country — but underneath all the wonder-working, both kingdoms are steering towards disaster. Jehu's purge is bloody even by the standards of this book. Israel falls first, exiled by Assyria; then, after a few genuinely good kings (Hezekiah, young Josiah), Judah goes the same way — Jerusalem burned, the temple stripped, the king led off in chains. It doesn't flinch from any of it.