Syria Besieges Samaria in Famine

²⁴ And it happened after this that ^(A)Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ And there was a great ^(B)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.

²⁶ Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

²⁷ And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” 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 ^(C)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.”

³⁰ Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he ^(D)tore his clothes; and as he passed by on the wall, the people looked, and there underneath he had sackcloth on his body. ³¹ Then he said, ^(E)“God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!”

³² But Elisha was sitting in his house, and ^(F)the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, ^(G)“Do you see how this son of ^(H)a murderer has sent someone to take away my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” ³³ And while he was still talking with them, there was the messenger, coming down to him; and then the king said, “Surely this calamity is from the Lord; ^(I)why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

The Syrians Flee

7 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: ^(A)‘Tomorrow about this time a ^[a]seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.’ ”

^2 (B)So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, “Look, ^(C)if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?”

And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

¹⁰ So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, “We went to the Syrian camp, and surprisingly no one was there, not a human sound—only horses and donkeys tied, and the tents intact.” ¹¹ And the gatekeepers called out, and they told it to the king’s household inside.

¹² So the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “Let me now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are ^(A)hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to ^[a]hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall catch them alive, and get into the city.’ ”

¹³ And one of his servants answered and said, “Please, let several men take five of the remaining horses which are left in the city. Look, they may either become like all the multitude of Israel that are left in it; or indeed, I say, they may become like all the multitude of Israel left from those who are consumed; so let us send them and see.” ¹⁴ Therefore they took two chariots with horses; and the king sent them in the direction of the Syrian army, saying, “Go and see.” ¹⁵ And they went after them to the Jordan; and indeed all the road was full of garments and weapons which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. So the messengers returned and told the king. ¹⁶ Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, ^(B)according to the word of the Lord.

¹⁷ Now the king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just ^(C)as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him. ¹⁸ So it happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, ^(D)“Two seahs of barley for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.”

¹⁹ Then that officer had answered the man of God, and said, “Now look, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?”

And he had said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” ²⁰ And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.