Joab replied, “As surely as God lives, if you had not said this, it would have been morning before the people would have abandoned pursuit ¹  of their brothers!”

So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba.

So they took a bull, as he had suggested, ¹  and prepared it. They invoked the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “Baal, answer us.” But there was no sound and no answer. They jumped ²  around on the altar they had made. ³