00:00It fell the way an old house falls, one stone at a time, unnoticed, until the entire wall lay on
00:09the ground.
00:10The altars of Jehovah still stood on the hills of Samaria, but beside them, month by month, a new altar
00:18of black stone would rise.
00:23Incense still rose, but no one knew for whom anymore, and in the public squares where once songs celebrated the
00:32exodus from Egypt, people now sang to a god who rode the clouds and promised rain.
00:38His name was Baal, and the name of the woman who brought him was Jezebel.
00:45The queen did not shout. She never needed to. She stood at the window of the throne room, her back
00:51to the king, watching the city grow dark.
01:02The elders came today, again.
01:06And what did they say, again?
01:09That the prophets of the lord are preaching against the queen in the villages, that the people are murmuring, that
01:15I should...
01:25I should... what, my lord?
01:28Listen.
01:36When you brought me from Sidon, you said I would be queen.
01:39A queen commands.
01:41She does not ask permission from old men with white beards to worship the god her father worshipped.
01:47The prophets of your god speak against me, because I have a god who answers.
01:53Baal gives rain.
01:55Baal gives grain.
01:57What has your god given Israel these last years, Ahab?
02:00War with Aram?
02:02Sin harvests?
02:03And a king who trembles before old men?
02:15He is the god of my fathers.
02:20And Baal is the god of mine.
02:23A kingdom cannot have two.
02:33Leave this to me.
02:35Ahab did not answer.
02:37And for a king, silence is the same as a signature.
02:43Every prophet of the lord found in Israel dies by order of the queen.
02:50The king of the king of the king of the king.
