2 Kings 6:24–7:2

Famine in Besieged Samaria

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!”