2 Kings 6:24–7:20
24 Some time later, Ben-Hadadz king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siegea to Samaria. 25 There was a great famineb in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekelsa of silver, and a quarter of a cabb of seed podsc c for five shekels.d
26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
27 The king replied, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?” 28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ated him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
30 When the king heard the woman’s words, he toree his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackclothf on his body. 31 He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”
32 Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the eldersg were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murdererh is sending someone to cut off my head?i Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?” 33 While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him.
The king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I waitj for the Lord any longer?”
7 Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seaha of the finest flour will sell for a shekelb and two seahsc of barley for a shekelk at the gate of Samaria.”
2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaningl said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgatesm of the heavens, could this happen?”
“You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eatn any of it!”
3 Now there were four men with leprosyd o at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, 6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the soundp of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hiredq the Hittiter and Egyptian kings to attack us!” 7 So they got up and fleds in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
8 The men who had leprosyt reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
9 Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” 11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hideu in the countryside, thinking, ‘They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.’ ”
13 One of his officers answered, “Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened.”
14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, “Go and find out what has happened.” 15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight.v So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plunderedw the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of the finest flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel,x as the Lord had said.
17 Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died,y just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house. 18 It happened as the man of God had said to the king: “About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”
19 The officer had said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgatesz of the heavens, could this happen?” The man of God had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!” 20 And that is exactly what happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died.