Study Desk

So there was a severe ^(C1)famine in Samaria; and behold, they kept besieging it until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a ^(F1)kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.

And as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, "Help, my lord the king!"

But he said, "^(F1)If the LORD does not help you, from where am I to help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?"

Then the king said to her, "^(C1)What ^(F1)is on your mind?" And she said, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son so that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'

"^(C1)So we cooked my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, so that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."

When the king heard the woman's words, ^(C1)he tore his clothes—and he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth ^(F1)underneath on his ^(F2)body.

Then he said, "May ^(C1)God do so to me and more so, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat ^(F1)remains on him today."

Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and ^(C1)the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man from his presence; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, "Do you ^(C2)see how this son of a murderer has sent a man to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and ^(F1)hold the door shut against him. Is the sound of his master's feet not behind him?"

While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him and he said, "^(C1)Behold, this evil is from the LORD; why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"