2 Kings 6-8

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

6 The sons of the prophets said to Elisha, Look now, the place where we live before you is too small for us.

² Let us go to the Jordan, and each man get there a [house] beam; and let us make us a place there where we may dwell. And he answered, Go.

³ One said, Be pleased to go with your servants. He answered, I will go.

⁴ So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.

⁵ But as one was felling his beam, the axhead fell into the water; and he cried, Alas, my master, for it was borrowed!

⁶ The man of God said, Where did it fall? When shown the place, Elisha cut off a stick and threw it in there, and the iron floated.

⁷ He said, Pick it up. And he put out his hand and took it.

⁸ When the king of Syria was warring against Israel, after counseling with his servants, he said, In such and such a place shall be my camp.

⁹ Then the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, Beware that you pass not such a place, for the Syrians are coming down there.

¹⁰ Then the king of Israel sent to the place of which [Elisha] told and warned him; and thus he protected and saved himself there repeatedly.

¹¹ Therefore the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing. He called his servants and said, Will you show me who of us is for the king of Israel?

¹² One of his servants said, None, my lord O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedchamber.

¹³ He said, Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him. And it was told him, He is in Dothan.

¹⁴ So [the Syrian king] sent there horses, chariots, and a great army. They came by night and surrounded the city.

¹⁵ When the servant of the man of God rose early and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was around the city. Elisha’s servant said to him, Alas, my master! What shall we do?

¹⁶ [Elisha] answered, Fear not; for those with us are more than those with them.

¹⁷ Then Elisha prayed, Lord, I pray You, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

¹⁸ And when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, Smite this people with blindness, I pray You. And God smote them with blindness, as Elisha asked.

¹⁹ Elisha said to the Syrians, This is not the way or the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek. And he led them to Samaria.

²⁰ And when they had come into Samaria, Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw. Behold, they were in the midst of Samaria!

²¹ When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, My father, shall I slay them? Shall I slay them?

²² [Elisha] answered, You shall not slay them. Would you slay those you have taken captive with your sword and bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and return to their master.

²³ So [the king] prepared great provision for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.

²⁴ Afterward, Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered his whole army and went up and besieged Samaria,

²⁵ And a great famine came to Samaria. They besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung [a wild vegetable] for five shekels of silver.

²⁶ As the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, a woman cried to him, Help, my lord, O king!

²⁷ He said, [For] if he does not help you [No, let the Lord help you!], from where can I get you help? Out of the threshing floor, or out of the winepress?

²⁸ And the king said to her, What ails you? She answered, This woman said to me, Give me your son so we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.

²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, Give your son so we may eat him, but she had hidden her son.

³⁰ When the king heard the woman’s words, he rent his clothes. As he went on upon the wall, the people looked, and behold, he wore sackcloth inside on his flesh.

³¹ Then he said, May God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day!

³² Now Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him. And the king sent a man from before him [to behead Elisha]. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, See how this son of [Jezebel] a murderer is sending to remove my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it fast against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet [just] behind him?

³³ And while Elisha was talking with them, behold, [the messenger] came to him [and then the king came also]. And [the relenting king] said, This evil is from the Lord! Why should I any longer wait [expecting Him to withdraw His punishment? What, Elisha, can be done now]?

7 Then Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will sell for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel in the gate of Samaria!

² Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, If the Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be? But Elisha said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

³ Now four men who were lepers were at the entrance of the city’s gate; and they said to one another, Why do we sit here until we die?

⁴ If we say, We will enter the city—then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; and if we sit still here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the army of the Syrians. If they spare us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.

⁵ So they arose in the twilight and went to the Syrian camp. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no man was there.

⁶ For the Lord had made the Syrian army hear a noise of chariots and horses, the noise of a great army. They had said to one another, The king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to come upon us.

⁷ So the Syrians arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents, horses, donkeys, even the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.

⁸ And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them [in the darkness]. Then they entered another tent and carried from there also and went and hid it.

⁹ Then they said one to another, We are not doing right. This is a day of [glad] good news and we are silent and do not speak up! If we wait until daylight, some punishment will come upon us [for not reporting at once]. So now come, let us go and tell the king’s household.

¹⁰ So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city. They told them, We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was neither sight nor sound of man there—only the horses and donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.

¹¹ Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told to the king’s household within.

¹² And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.

¹³ One of his servants said, Let some men take five of the remaining horses; [if they are caught and killed] they will be no worse off than all the multitude of Israel left in the city to be consumed. Let us send and see.

¹⁴ So they took two chariot horses, and the king sent them after the Syrian army, saying, Go and see.

¹⁵ They went after them to the Jordan. All the way was strewn with clothing and equipment which the Syrians had cast away in their flight. And the messengers returned and told the king.

¹⁶ Then the people went out and plundered the tents of the Syrians. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, as the Lord had spoken [through Elisha].^(A)

¹⁷ The king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate, and the [starving] people trampled him in the gate [as they struggled to get through for food], and he died, as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to him.

¹⁸ When the man of God had told the king, Two measures of barley shall sell for a shekel and a measure of fine flour for a shekel tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria,

¹⁹ The captain had told the man of God, If the Lord should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be? And he said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.^(B)

²⁰ And so it was fulfilled to him, for the people trampled on him in the gate, and he died.

8 Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, Arise and go with your household and sojourn wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine, and moreover, it will come upon the land for seven years.

² So the woman arose and did as the man of God had said. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines seven years.

³ At the end of the seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went to appeal to the king for her house and land.

⁴ The king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me all the great things Elisha has done.

⁵ And as Gehazi was telling the king how [Elisha] had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and land. And Gehazi said, My lord O king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life.

⁶ When the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed to her a certain officer, saying, Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land even until now.

⁷ Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad king of Syria was sick; and he was told, The man of God has come here.

⁸ And the king said to Hazael, Take a present in your hand and go meet the man of God, and inquire of the Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease?

⁹ So Hazael went to meet Elisha and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus, forty camel loads, and came and stood before him and said, Your son Ben-hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, asking, Shall I recover from this disease?

¹⁰ And Elisha said, Go, say to him, You shall certainly recover; but the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die.

¹¹ Elisha stared steadily at him until Hazael was embarrassed. And the man of God wept.

¹² And Hazael said, Why do you weep, my lord? He answered, Because I know the evil that you will do to the Israelites. You will burn their strongholds, slay their young men with the sword, dash their infants in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.

¹³ And Hazael said, What is your servant, only a dog, that he should do this monstrous thing? And Elisha answered, The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Syria.

¹⁴ Then [Hazael] departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, What did Elisha say to you? And he answered, He told me you would surely recover.

¹⁵ But the next day Hazael took the bedspread and dipped it in water and spread it on [the Syrian king’s] face, so that he died. And Hazael reigned in his stead.

¹⁶ In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.

¹⁷ He was thirty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

¹⁸ He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab, for [Athaliah] the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁹ Yet, for David His servant’s sake, the Lord would not destroy Judah, for He promised to give him and his sons a lamp forever.

²⁰ In his days, Edom revolted from the rule of Judah and set up a king over themselves.

²¹ So Jehoram [of Judah] went over to Zair with all his chariots. He and his chariot commanders rose up by night and slew the Edomites who had surrounded them; and [escaping] his army fled home.

²² So Edom revolted from the rule of Judah to this day. Then Libnah revolted at the same time.

²³ The rest of the acts of Jehoram, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

²⁴ Jehoram slept with his fathers and was buried with [them] in the City of David. Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.

²⁵ In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.

²⁶ Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

²⁷ He walked in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as did the house of Ahab, for his father was son-in-law of Ahab.

²⁸ Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramoth-gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.

²⁹ King Joram returned to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.