²⁵ And there was a great ^(A)famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a ^[a]kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

⁶ By the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

^13 (A)Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you ^[a]assured ^(B)peace in this place.’ ”

¹⁴ And the Lord said to me, ^(C)“The prophets prophesy lies in My name. ^(D)I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, ^[b]divination, a worthless thing, and the ^(E)deceit of their heart. ¹⁵ Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, whom I did not send, ^(F)and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not be in this land’—‘By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed!

²⁸ Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”

And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So ^(A)we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

²⁴ ‘Look, the siege mounds! They have come to the city to take it; and the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of ^(A)the sword and famine and pestilence. What You have spoken has happened; there You see it!

³ By the ninth day of the ^(A)fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.

¹³ Then the Lord said, “So ^(A)shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, where I will drive them.”

¹⁴ So I said, ^(B)“Ah, Lord God! Indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now; I have never eaten ^(C)what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has ^(D)abominable^[a] flesh ever come into my mouth.”

¹⁵ Then He said to me, “See, I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it.”

¹⁶ Moreover He said to me, “Son of man, surely I will cut off the ^(E)supply of bread in Jerusalem; they shall ^(F)eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and shall ^(G)drink water by measure and with dread,

⁴ If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the ^(A)army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.”