Outcasts Visit the Enemy Camp

³ Now there were four men with leprosy^[a] sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. ⁴ “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”

⁵ So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there! ⁶ For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians^[b] to attack us!” they cried to one another. ⁷ So they panicked and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else, as they fled for their lives.

⁸ When the men with leprosy arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. ⁹ Finally, they said to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”