Solomon Demonstrates God’s Wisdom

¹⁶ Later, two prostitutes came and stood before the king.

¹⁷ One woman said, “Hear me, my lord! This woman and I live in the same house. While she was living in the house, I gave birth. ¹⁸ Three days after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together. There was no one else in the house with us. Only the two of us were there. ¹⁹ One night this woman’s son died because she lay on top of him. ²⁰ Then she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while I, your servant, was sleeping. She laid him next to her, and her dead son she laid next to me. ²¹ When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, there he was—dead! But when I examined him closely in the morning, I saw it was not my son, to whom I had given birth!”

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

But the first one kept saying, “No! Your son is really the dead one, and my son is the living one!” They kept arguing like this before the king.

²³ The king said, “This woman says, ‘My son is the living one, and your son is the dead one.’ But this other woman says, ‘No, your son is really the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” ²⁴ So the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword to the king.

²⁵ Then the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to this woman and half to that woman.”

²⁶ But the woman to whom the living child belonged spoke up, because her feelings for her son were very strong. She said, “Listen to me, my lord. Give her the living child. Please don’t kill him.”

But the other woman said, “He will be neither mine nor yours. Cut him in two!”

²⁷ The king answered, “Give the living child to the first woman, and do not kill him. She is his mother.”

²⁸ All Israel heard about the judgment which the king had rendered. They were filled with awe^[a] in his presence, because they saw that God’s wisdom was in him to administer justice.