2 Kings 6:24-33

Modern English Version

Ben-Hadad Besieges Samaria

²⁴ After this, Ben-Hadad king of Aram gathered all his army, went up, and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria, and they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels^[a] of silver, and one-fourth of a kab^[b] of dove droppings for five shekels^[c] of silver.

²⁶ As the king of Israel was walking across the city wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord king.”

²⁷ He said, “If the Lord will not help you, how can I help you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ And the king said to her, “What is wrong with you?”

And she said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son and let us 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, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”

³⁰ When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And since he was walking across the city wall, the people saw that he had sackcloth on his body underneath. ³¹ Then he said, “So may God do to me, and even more, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stands on his shoulders after today.”

³² Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger, but before the messenger came to him, Elisha said to the elders, “Are you aware that this son of a murderer has sent a man to take off my head? When the messenger enters, shut the door and hold it against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

³³ And while he was speaking with them, the messenger came down to him, and then the king said, “This calamity is of the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?”