The Arameans Flee

³ Now there were four men with a defiling skin disease outside the city gate who said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die?^(A)

⁴⁵ “The person who has the defiling disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ ⁴⁶ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.^(A)

² “Command the Israelites to put out of the camp everyone who has a defiling skin disease or a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with a corpse;^{(A) 3} you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp; they must not defile their camp, where I dwell among them.”^{(B) 4} The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp; as the Lord had spoken to Moses, so the Israelites did.

⁴ If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there, but if we sit here, we shall also die. Therefore, let us desert to the Aramean camp; if they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die.”^(A)

¹⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.”^(A)

¹³ Why should you and your people die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the Lord has spoken concerning any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?^(A)

⁴ Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.”^(A)

The Healing of Naaman

5 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from a skin disease.^(A)