2 Kings 6:24-33

Complete Jewish Bible

²⁴ But some time afterwards, Ben-Hadad king of Aram gathered all his army, went up and laid siege to Shomron. ²⁵ At the time, there was a severe famine in Shomron; and they maintained their siege until a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver and half a pint of doves’ dung for five pieces of silver. ²⁶ As the king of Isra’el was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord, king!” ²⁷ He said, “If Adonai isn’t helping you, how do you expect me to help you? There isn’t any grain, and there isn’t any wine.” ²⁸ Then the king asked her, “What’s troubling you?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son, so that we can eat him today; and we’ll eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, so that we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.” ³⁰ When the king heard what the woman said, he tore his clothes. At the time, he was passing by on the wall; and when the people looked, they saw him there with sackcloth against his skin. ³¹ Then he said, “May God do terrible things to me, and worse ones too, if the head of Elisha the son of Shafat remains on his body by day’s end.” ³² Elisha was sitting in his house, and the leaders were sitting there with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the leaders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent someone to remove my head? Look, when the messenger comes, close the door and keep it shut against him. You can hear his master’s footsteps following right behind him!” ³³ While he was still speaking, the messenger arrived with this message from the king: “Here, this evil is from Adonai. Why should I wait for Adonai any longer?”