Tekoa

⁶ He built up Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

⁷ Beth-zur, Soco, Adullam,

Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

² So Joab sent to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner; put on clothes for mourning and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned for the dead a long time.

³ Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab put the words in her mouth.

⁴ When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell facedown in homage and said, “Help me, O king!”

But the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, may any blame be on me and on my father’s house, and may the king and his throne be guiltless.”

These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.

“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.