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The special officer who was near to the king said to the man of God, ‘That will never happen! Even if the Lord opens the skies and sends us rain, it could not happen so soon.’ Elisha said, ‘You yourself will see this happen, but you will not eat any of the food!’

How the war finished

At this time, there were four men who had leprosy. They were at Samaria's gate where people went in to the city. They said to each other, ‘We should not stay here. If we wait here we will die. There is no food in the city. If we go in there we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So we will go out to the camp of the Syrian army. We will ask them to be kind to us. They may let us stay alive, or they may kill us. But we would have died anyway.’

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The officer on whose arm the king was leaning(A) said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates(B) of the heavens, could this happen?”

“You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat(C) any of it!”

The Siege Lifted

Now there were four men with leprosy[a](D) at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Kings 7:3 The Hebrew for leprosy was used for various diseases affecting the skin; also in verse 8.