2 *Kings 7

₁Elisha said: ‘Listen to what the Lord says: “Tomorrow at this time, the price of food will be very little. The price of one seah of flour will be one shekel, and the price of 2 seahs of barley will be one shekel at the gate of Samaria.” ’ ₂The officer who was standing next to the king said to the man of God: ‘No, that will never happen, not even if the Lord opens the windows in the sky for the rain to fall down.’ Elisha said to the officer: ‘I am telling you this and you will see it happen, but you will not eat any of that food.’

₃There were 4 lepers near the gate of the city of Samaria. They said to each other: ‘Why must we sit here until we die? ₄If we decide to go into the city, we will die because there is no food in the city. And if we stay here, we will die here. So let's go to the Aramean soldiers. If they let us live, then we will live and if they kill us, then we will die.’ ₅When it became dark, the 4 lepers went to the camp of the Arameans, but when they came to the camp, they were very surprised because there was no one there. ₆The Lord had done something. He made the Arameans hear the sound of a lot of horses and war-chariots and many soldiers coming, and then the Arameans said to themselves: ‘Do you hear that? The king_of_Israel has hired the soldiers from the kings of the Hittites and Egypt to come and fight in a war_against us.’ ₇When it became dark, the Arameans fled. They left their tents and their horses and donkeys and they all ran away and fled because they did not want to die.

₈The 4 lepers came to the camp and they went into a tent and they ate the food and they drank. They also picked up gold and silver and clothes and they went to hide them. Then they came back into another tent. They also took things there and hid them. ₉Then they said to themselves: ‘What we are doing is wrong. Today is a day of good news. We must tell it to everyone. We must not wait until tomorrow. That would be wrong. Let us go and tell the people in the palace.’

₁₀They came to the gate of the city and they shouted to the gatekeepers and said: ‘We went to the Aramean camp and there is no one there. The horses and donkeys are tied and their tents are still there.’ ₁₁The gatekeepers went to the king's palace and told them. ₁₂When they told the king about it that night, he said to his officers: ‘I know what the Arameans want us to do. They know we are hungry. They have gone out of their camp and they are hiding in the field. They want to catch us alive when we go out of this city, so that they can come in.’

₁₃One of the officials of the king said: ‘The horses that we have in the city will also die like many of our people. Let us take 5 of the horses and send people to go and see where the Arameans are.’ ₁₄They took 2 war-chariots and horses and the king sent men to see where the Arameans were. ₁₅The men went as far as the Jordan River looking for the Arameans. Everywhere along the way there were clothes and weapons that the Arameans had thrown away while they were running away. The men came back and they told the king what they had seen. ₁₆Then the people of the city went to the camp and they took everything that was in the tents of the Arameans. Everything happened as the Lord had said: The price of one seah of flour was one shekel and the price of 2 seahs of barley was also one shekel.

₁₇The king told the officer who was with him to go and stand at the gate, but the people pushed over the officer and trampled him at the gate and he died. ₁₈It happened as the man of God had told the king. He had said: ‘Tomorrow at this time, the price of 2 seahs of barley will be one shekel, and one seah of flour will cost one shekel.’ ₁₉That was the officer who had said to the man of God: ‘What you say can never happen, even if the Lord opens the windows in the sky for the rain to fall down.’ Then Elisha had said to him: ‘You will see it happen, but you will not eat any of that food.’ ₂₀And that is what happened to the officer. The people trampled him and he died at the gate of the city.