2 Kings 7-8

Common English Bible

7 Elisha said, “Hear the Lord’s word! This is what the Lord says: At this time tomorrow a seah^[a] of wheat flour will sell for a shekel at Samaria’s gate, and two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel.”

² Then the officer, the one the king leaned on for support, spoke to the man of God: “Come on! Even if the Lord should make windows in the sky, how could that happen?”

Elisha said, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you won’t eat from it.”

The siege is broken

³ Now there were four men with skin disease^[b] at the entrance to the city. They said to each other, “What are we doing sitting here until we die? ⁴ If we decide, ‘Let’s go into the city,’ the famine is there, and we’ll die in the city. But if we stay here, we’ll die just the same. So let’s go and surrender to the Aramean camp. If they let us live, we’ll live. If they kill us, we’ll die.” ⁵ So they set out in the evening to the Aramean camp, and they came to the edge of the camp. But there was no one there because ⁶ the Lord had made the Aramean camp hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a strong army. They had said to each other, “Listen! Israel’s king has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to come against us!” ⁷ So they had got up and fled in the evening, leaving their tents, horses, and donkeys. They left the camp exactly as it was and ran for their lives.

⁸ So these men with skin disease came to the edge of the camp. They entered a tent where they ate and drank. They carried off some silver, gold, and garments, and they hid them. Then they returned and went into another tent. They took more things from there, went away, and hid them. ⁹ But then they said to each other, “What we’re doing isn’t right. Today is a day of good news, but we’re keeping quiet about it. If we wait until dawn, something bad will happen to us. Come on! Let’s go and tell the palace.” ¹⁰ So they went and called out to the gatekeepers, telling them, “We went to the Aramean camp, and listen to this: No one was there, not even the sound of anyone! The only things there were tied-up horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” ¹¹ The gatekeepers shouted out the news, and it was reported within the palace.

¹² The king got up in the night. He said to his servants, “Let me tell you what the Arameans are doing to us. They know we are starving, so they’ve left the camp to hide in the fields. They are thinking, The Israelites will come out from the city, and then we’ll capture them alive and invade the city.”

¹³ But one of his servants answered, “Please let some men take five of the horses that are left, and let’s send them out to see what happens. They are in the same situation as the large number of Israelites who are left here; they are no better off than the large number of Israelites who’ve already perished.”^{[c] 14} So they chose two chariots with their horses.

The king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and see!” ¹⁵ So they went after the Arameans as far as the Jordan River. The road was filled the whole way with garments and equipment that the Arameans had thrown away in their rush. The messengers returned and reported this to the king.

¹⁶ Then the people went out and looted the Aramean camp. And so it happened that a seah of wheat flour did sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, in agreement with the Lord’s word. ¹⁷ But the king had put the officer whom he leaned on for support in charge of the city gate. The people trampled the officer at the gate, and he died. This was just what the man of God said when the king had come down to him. ¹⁸ Because when the man of God said to the king, “At this time tomorrow two seahs of barley will sell for a shekel at Samaria’s gate, and one seah of wheat flour will sell for a shekel,” ¹⁹ the officer had answered the man of God, “Come on! Even if the Lord should make windows in the sky, how could that happen?” Then Elisha had said, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you won’t eat from it.” ²⁰ That’s exactly what happened to him. The people trampled him at the city gate, and he died.

The woman from Shunem

8 Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had brought back to life: “You and your household must go away and live wherever you can, because the Lord has called for a famine. It is coming to the land and will last seven years.”

² So the woman went and did what the man of God asked. She and her household moved away, living in Philistia seven years. ³ When seven years had passed, the woman returned from Philistia. She went to appeal to the king for her house and her farmland. ⁴ The king was speaking to Gehazi, the man of God’s servant, asking him, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.” ⁵ So Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had brought the dead to life. At that very moment, the woman whose son he had brought back to life began to appeal to the king for her house and her farmland.

Gehazi said, “Your Majesty, this is the woman herself! And this is her son, the one Elisha brought to life!”

⁶ The king questioned the woman, and she told him her story. Then the king appointed an official to help her, saying, “Return everything that belongs to her, as well as everything that the farmland has produced, starting from the day she left the country until right now.”

Hazael becomes king

⁷ Now Elisha had gone to Damascus when Aram’s King Ben-hadad became sick. The king was told, “The man of God has come all this way.”

⁸ So the king said to Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Question the Lord through him: ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

⁹ So Hazael went out to meet Elisha. He took along forty camel-loads of Damascus’ finest goods as a gift. He came and stood before Elisha and said, “Your son Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, sent me to you to ask, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

¹⁰ Elisha said to him, “Go and tell him, ‘You will definitely recover,’ but actually the Lord has shown me that he will die.” ¹¹ Elisha stared straight at Hazael until he felt uneasy.^[d] Then the man of God began to cry.

¹² Hazael said, “Master, why are you crying?”

“Because I know what violence you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha said. “You will drive them from their forts with fire. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will smash their children and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹³ Hazael replied, “How could your servant, who is nothing but a dog, do such mighty things?”

Elisha said, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.” ¹⁴ Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master.

“What did Elisha say to you?” Ben-hadad asked.

“He told me that you will certainly live,” Hazael replied. ¹⁵ But the next day he took a blanket, soaked it in water, and put it over Ben-hadad’s face until he died. Hazael succeeded him as king.

Jehoram rules Judah

¹⁶ In the fifth year of Israel’s King Joram, Ahab’s son, Jehoram, the son of Judah’s King Jehoshaphat, became king.^{[e] 17} He was 32 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eight years in Jerusalem. ¹⁸ He walked in the ways of Israel’s kings, just as Ahab’s dynasty had done, because he married Ahab’s daughter. He did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes. ¹⁹ Nevertheless, because of his servant David, the Lord wasn’t willing to destroy Judah. The Lord had promised to preserve a lamp for David and his sons forever. ²⁰ During Jehoram’s rule Edom rebelled against Judah’s power and appointed their own king. ²¹ Jehoram^[f] along with all his chariots crossed over to Zair. He got up at night to attack the Edomites who had surrounded him and his chariot commanders,^[g] but his army fled back home. ²² So Edom has been independent of Judah to this day. Libnah rebelled at the same time. ²³ The rest of Jehoram’s deeds and all that he accomplished, aren’t they written in the official records of Judah’s kings? ²⁴ Jehoram died and was buried with his ancestors in David’s City. His son Ahaziah succeeded him as king.

Ahaziah rules Judah

²⁵ Ahaziah, the son of Judah’s king Jehoram, became king in the twelfth year of Israel’s King Joram,^[h] Ahab’s son. ²⁶ Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king, and he ruled for one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah; she was the granddaughter of Israel’s King Omri. ²⁷ He walked in the ways of Ahab’s dynasty, doing what was evil in the Lord’s eyes, just as Ahab’s dynasty had done, because he had married into Ahab’s family. ²⁸ Ahaziah went with Joram, Ahab’s son, to fight against Aram’s King Hazael at Ramoth-gilead, where the Arameans wounded Joram. ²⁹ King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had given him at Ramah in his battle with Aram’s King Hazael. Then Judah’s King Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, went down to visit Joram, Ahab’s son, at Jezreel because he had been wounded.