²⁴Later King Benhadad of Aram assembled his whole army. They went to Samaria and blockaded it. ²⁵The shortages caused by the blockade of Samaria became so severe that a donkey’s head sold for two pounds of silver and a half-pint of dove^amanure for two ounces of silver.

²⁶As the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, Your Majesty!”

²⁷He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, how can I help you? I can’t give you something from the threshing floor^bor the winepress.” ²⁸Then the king asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She answered, “This woman told me, ‘Give up your son. Let’s eat him today. We’ll eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I told her, ‘Give up your son. We’ll eat him,’ but she hid her son.”

³⁰When the king heard the woman say this, he tore his clothes ⸤in distress⸥. As he was walking on the city wall, the people saw that he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes. ³¹He said, “May God strike me dead if the head of Elisha, son of Shaphat, stays on his ⸤body⸥ today.”

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Footnotes

a 6:25 Or “pigeon.”
b 6:27 A threshing floor is an outdoor area where grain is separated from its husks.