2 Kings 6:24-33

Ben-hadad’s Siege of Samaria

24Afterward aBen-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. 25And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab
A  shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams; a  kab was about 1 quart or 1 liter
of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver.
26Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 27And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” 28And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 cSo we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 30When the king heard the words of the woman, dhe tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, ehe had sackcloth beneath on his body 31and he said, f“May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

32Elisha was sitting in his house, gand the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this hmurderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” 33And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the Lord! iWhy should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

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