24
It happened after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria.
25
There was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until a donkey`s head was sold for eighty [pieces] of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove`s dung for five [pieces] of silver.
26
As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, there cried a woman to him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.
27
He said, If Yahweh doesn`t help you, whence shall I help you? out of the threshing floor, or out of the winepress?
28
The king said to her, What ails you? 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 we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, Give your son, that we may eat him; and she has hid her son.
30
It happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes (now he was passing by on the wall); and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within on his flesh.
31
Then he said, God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.
32
But Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him; and [the king] sent a man from before him: but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See you how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head? behold, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and hold the door fast against him: isn`t the sound of his master`s feet behind him?
33
While he was yet talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of Yahweh; why should I wait for Yahweh any longer?