Besieged Samaria Resorts to Cannibalism

²⁴ It happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Aram assembled all of his army and marched up and laid siege against Samaria. ²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria, and behold, a siege was against it, until the head of a donkey went for eighty shekels of silver, and one fourth of the measure of the dung of doves went for five shekels of silver. ²⁶ It happened that the king of Israel was crossing over on the wall, and a woman called out to him, saying, “Help, my lord the king!” ²⁷ He said, “No, let Yahweh help you. How^[a] can I save you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press?” ²⁸ The king said to her, “What is the problem?”^[b] Then the woman said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give me your son, and let us eat him today, then tomorrow we will eat my son.’ ²⁹ So we cooked my son and ate him, and I said to her the next day, ‘Give your son that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.” ³⁰ It happened that when the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he had been walking on the wall, and the people saw, and behold, sackcloth was over his flesh underneath. ³¹ Then he said, “May God do to me and thus may he add, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today!” ³² Now Elisha was sitting in his house and the elders were sitting with him, and the king dispatched a man from before him, but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Did you see that this son of a murderer has sent to remove my head? Look, when the messenger comes, close the door; and you must hold the door closed against him.^[c] Is not the sound of the feet of his master behind him?” ³³ While he was still speaking with them, suddenly the messenger was coming down to him, and he said, “Look this trouble is from Yahweh. Why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?”