³ The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them.^(A) If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease,^[a](B)

² “Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has a defiling skin disease^[a](A) or a discharge^(B) of any kind, or who is ceremonially unclean^(C) because of a dead body.^(D)

¹⁴ The Lord replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face,^(A) would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp^(B) for seven days; after that she can be brought back.” ¹⁵ So Miriam was confined outside the camp^(C) for seven days,^(D) and the people did not move on till she was brought back.

The Siege Lifted

³ Now there were four men with leprosy^[a](A) at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? ⁴ 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.”

⁵ At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, ⁶ for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound^(B) of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired^(C) the Hittite^(D) and Egyptian kings to attack us!” ⁷ So they got up and fled^(E) in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.

⁸ The men who had leprosy^(F) reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.

⁹ Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”

¹⁰ So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.”

⁵ The Lord afflicted^(A) the king with leprosy^[a] until the day he died, and he lived in a separate house.^[b](B) Jotham^(C) the king’s son had charge of the palace^(D) and governed the people of the land.