2 Kings 6:24–31

Besieged Samaria Resorts to Cannibalism

²⁴It happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Aram assembled all of his army and marched up and laid siege against Samaria. ²⁵There was a great famine in Samaria, and behold, a siege was against it, until the head of a donkey went for eighty shekels of silver, and one fourth of the measure of the dung of doves went for five shekels of silver. ²⁶It happened that the king of Israel was crossing over on the wall, and a woman called out to him, saying, “Help, my lord the king!” ²⁷He said, “No, let Yahweh help you. How^f can I save you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press?” ²⁸The king said to her, “What is the problem?”^g Then the woman said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son, and let us eat him today, then tomorrow we will eat my son.’ ²⁹So we cooked my son and ate him, and I said to her the next day, ‘Give your son that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.” ³⁰It happened that when the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he had been walking on the wall, and the people saw, and behold, sackcloth was over his flesh underneath. ³¹Then he said, “May God do to me and thus may he add, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!”