15When the attendant of the man of God rose early and went outside, he saw a force, with horses and chariots, surrounding the town. “Alas, master, what shall we do?” his servant asked him. 16“Have no fear,” he replied. “There are more on our side than on theirs.” 17Then Elisha prayed: “LORD, open his eyes and let him see.” And the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he saw the hills all around Elisha covered with horses and chariots of fire. 18[The Arameans] came down against him, and Elisha prayed to the LORD: “Please strike this people with a blinding light.” And He struck them with a blinding light, as Elisha had asked.
19Elisha said to them, “This is not the road, and that is not the town; follow me, and I will lead you to the man you want.” And he led them to Samaria. 20When they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “O LORD, open the eyes of these men so that they may see.” The LORD opened their eyes and they saw that they were inside Samaria. 21When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I strike them down?” 22“No, do not,” he replied. “Did you take them captive with your sword and bow that you would strike them down? Rather, set food and drink before them, and let them eat and drink and return to their master.” 23So he prepared a lavish feast for them and, after they had eaten and drunk, he let them go, and they returned to their master. And the Aramean bands stopped invading the land of Israel.
24Sometime later, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and marched upon Samaria and besieged it. 25There was a great famine in Samaria, and the siege continued until a donkey’s head sold for eighty [shekels] of silver and a quarter of a kab of d-doves’ dung-d for five shekels. 26Once, when the king of Israel was walking on the city wall, a woman cried out to him: “Help me, Your Majesty!” 27“Don’t [ask me],” he replied. “Let the LORD help you! Where could I get help for you, from the threshing floor or from the winepress? 28But what troubles you?” the king asked her. The woman answered, “That woman said to me, ‘Give up your son and we will eat him today; and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29So we cooked my son and we ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son and let’s eat him’; but she did her son.” 30When the king heard what the woman said, he rent his clothes; and as he walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing sackcloth underneath.
31He said, “Thus and more may God do to me if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on e-his shoulders-e today.” 32Now Elisha was sitting at home and the elders were sitting with him. The king had sent ahead one of his men; but before the messenger arrived, [Elisha] said to the elders, “Do you see—that murderer has sent someone to cut off my head! Watch when the messenger comes, and shut the door and hold the door fast against him. No doubt the sound of his master’s footsteps will follow.”
33While he was still talking to them, the messengerf came to him and said, “This calamity is from the LORD. What more can I hope for 7 from the LORD?” 1And Elisha replied, “Hear the word of the LORD. Thus said the LORD: This time tomorrow, a seah of choice flour shall sell for a shekel at the gate of Samaria, and two seahs of barley for a shekel.” 2The aide on whose arm the king was leaning spoke up and said to the man of God, “Even if the LORD were to make windows in the sky, could this come to pass?” And he retorted, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
3There were four men, lepers, outside the gate. They said to one another, “Why should we sit here waiting for death? 4If we decide to go into the town, what with the famine in the town, we shall die there; and if we just sit here, still we die. Come, let us desert to the Aramean camp. If they let us live, we shall live; and if they put us to death, we shall but die.”
5They set out at twilight for the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there. 6For the LORD had caused the Aramean camp to hear a sound of chariots, a sound of horses—the din of a huge army. They said to one another, “The king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Mizraima to attack us!” 7And they fled headlong in the twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and asses—the [entire] camp just as it was—as they fled for their lives.
8When those lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into one of the tents and ate and drank; then they carried off silver and gold and clothing from there and buried it. They came back and went into another tent, and they carried off what was there and buried it. 9Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent! If we wait until the light of morning, we shall incur guilt. Come, let us go and inform the king’s palace.” 10They went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We have been to the Aramean camp. There is not a soul there, nor any human sound; but the horses are tethered and the asses are tethered and the tents are undisturbed.”
11The gatekeepers called out, and the news was passed on into the king’s palace. 12The king rose in the night and said to his courtiers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are starving, so they have gone out of camp and hidden in the fields, thinking: When they come out of the town, we will take them alive and get into the town.” 13But one of the courtiers spoke up, “Let a fewb of the remaining horses that are still here be taken—c-they are like those that are left here of the whole multitude of Israel, out of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished-c—and let us send and find out.”
14They took two teamsc of horses and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and find out.” 15They followed them as far as the Jordan, and found the entire road full of clothing and gear which the Arameans had thrown away in their haste; and the messengers returned and told the king. 16The people then went out and plundered the Aramean camp. So a seah of choice flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel—as the LORD had spoken.
17Now the king had put the aide on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate; and he was trampled to death in the gate by the people—just as the man of God had spoken, as he had spoken when the king came down to him. 18For when the man of God said to the king, “This time tomorrow two seahs of barley shall sell at the gate of Samaria for a shekel, and a seah of choice flour for a shekel,” 19the aide answered the man of God and said, “Even if the LORD made windows in the sky, could this come to pass?” And he retorted, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” 20That is exactly what happened to him: The people trampled him to death in the gate.
8 Elisha had said to the woman whose son he revived, “Leave immediately with your family and go sojourn a-somewhere else;-a for the LORD has decreed a seven-year famine upon the land, and it has already begun.” 2The woman had done as the man of God had spoken; she left with her family and sojourned in the land of the Philistines for seven years. 3At the end of the seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went to the king to complain about her house and farm. 4Now the king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and he said, “Tell me all the wonderful things that Elisha has done.” 5While he was telling the king how [Elisha] had revived a dead person, in came the woman whose son he had revived, complaining to the king about her house and farm. “My lord king,” said Gehazi, “this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha revived.” 6The king questioned the woman, and she told him [the story]; so the king assigned a eunuch to her and instructed him: “Restore all her property, and all the revenue from her farm from the time she left the
