2 Kings 6:24–31

Aram’s Siege of Samaria

²⁴Now it happened afterwards, that ^aBen-hadad king of Aram gathered all his military camp and went up and besieged Samaria.

²⁵Now there was a great ^afamine in Samaria. And behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for ¹eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a ²kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.

²⁶As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Save, my lord, O king!”

²⁷He said, “¹If Yahweh does not save you, from where shall I save you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?”

²⁸And the king said to her, “^aWhat ¹is the matter with you?” And she said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

²⁹“^aSo we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

³⁰Now it happened that when the king heard the words of the woman, ^ahe tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth ¹beneath on his ²body.

³¹Then he said, “May ^aGod do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat ¹remains on him today.”