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 ^(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.”

⁹ And I will cause them to eat the ^(A)flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair.” ’

¹⁰ Therefore fathers ^(A)shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will ^(B)scatter to all the winds.

^53 (A)You shall eat the ^[a]fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. ⁵⁴ The ^[b]sensitive and very refined man among you ^(B)will^[c] be hostile toward his brother, toward ^(C)the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, ⁵⁵ so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁶ The ^[d]tender and ^[e]delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, ^[f]will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, ⁵⁷ her ^[g]placenta which comes out ^(D)from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.