1 Kings 3:16-28

Tree of Life Version

Judging Between Two Women

¹⁶ Later two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷ One woman said: “My lord, please! This woman and I live in the same house, and I delivered a child while she was in the house. ¹⁸ On the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth to a child. While we were together with no one else with us in the house, just the two of us in the house, ¹⁹ this woman’s child died during the night, because she lay on top of him. ²⁰ Then she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your handmaid was asleep. She laid him at her breast and laid her dead child at my breast. ²¹ When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, he had just died! But when I looked at him closely in the morning, I realized that he was not the son I had borne!”

²² But the other woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son!”

But the first woman said, “No! The dead one is your son and the living one is my son!” Thus they spoke before the king.

²³ Then said the king: “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead,’ while the other says, ‘No, but your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.’”

²⁴ Then the king said: “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. ²⁵ Then the king said: “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.”

²⁶ Then the woman whose son was the living one spoke up to the king—for her heart grew tender for her son—and said, “My lord, please! Give her the living child! Only don’t kill him!”

But the other said, “It will be neither mine nor yours! Cut it in two!”

²⁷ Then the king responded by saying, “Give her the living child and certainly don’t kill him. She is the mother.” ²⁸ When all Israel heard of the verdict that the king had given, they were in awe of the king. For they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.