2 Samuel 20:15-22

15And all the men who were with Joab came and besieged him in aAbel of Beth-maacah. bThey cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart, and they were battering the wall to throw it down. 16Then a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab, ‘Come here, that I may speak to you.’” 17And he came near her, and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He answered, “I am.” Then she said to him, “Listen to the words of your servant.” And he answered, “I am listening.” 18Then she said, “They used to say in former times, ‘Let them but ask counsel at cAbel,’ and so they settled a matter. 19I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why will you dswallow up ethe heritage of the Lord?” 20Joab answered, “Far be it from me, far be it, that I should fswallow up or destroy! 21That is not true. But a man of gthe hill country of Ephraim, called Sheba the son of Bichri, has lifted up his hand against King David. Give up him alone, and I will withdraw from the city.” And the woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head shall be thrown to you over the wall.” 22Then the woman went to all the people hin her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the trumpet, and they dispersed from the city, ievery man to his home. And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

2 Kings 6:24-33

Ben-hadad’s Siege of Samaria

24Afterward jBen-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 lSo 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, mhe tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, nhe had sackcloth beneath on his body 31and he said, o“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, pand 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 qmurderer 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! rWhy should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

2 Kings 7

Elisha Promises Food

1But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: thus says the Lord, sTomorrow about this time a seah
A  seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters
of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel,
A  shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”
2Then vthe captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, wIf the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

The Syrians Flee

3Now there were four men who were lepers
Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13
yat the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
4If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.” 5So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. 6For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians zhear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us aathe kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 abSo they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives. 8And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.

9Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.” 10So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.” 11Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household. 12And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’” 13And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.” 14So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.” 15So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.

16Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, acaccording to the word of the Lord. 17Now the king had appointed adthe captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said aewhen the king came down to him. 18For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,” 19 afthe captain had answered the man of God, “If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, ag“You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” 20And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.

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