⁶ Then he wrote a letter to them a second time saying, “If you are on my side, and you will listen to my voice, take the heads of the men, your master’s sons, and come to me about this time tomorrow at Jezreel.” Now the king’s sons, seventy persons, were with the great men of the city, who were rearing them. ⁷ Now it happened that when the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons and ^(A)slaughtered them, seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him at Jezreel. ⁸ Then the messenger came and told him, saying, “They have brought the heads of the king’s sons.” So he said, “Put them in two heaps at the entrance of the gate until morning.”