²⁵ So there was a great famine^(A) in Samaria, and they continued the siege against it until a donkey’s head sold for 80 silver shekels,^[a] and a cup^[b] of dove’s dung^[c] sold for five silver shekels.^[d](B)

²⁶ As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “My lord the king, help!”

²⁷ He answered, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”^{(C) 28} Then the king asked her, “What’s the matter?”^(D)

She said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him today. Then we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him, and I said to her the next day, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him,’^(E) but she has hidden her son.”

⁹ I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and they will eat each other’s flesh in the siege and distress that their enemies, those who want to take their life, inflict on them.^(A)

ר Resh

י Yod