18. Three days later she also gave birth to her baby. There was no one else in the house with us, just the two of us.
19. One night while this woman was asleep with her baby, the baby died.
20. That night while I was asleep, she took my son from my bed and carried him to her bed. Then she put the dead baby in my bed.
21. In the morning I woke up and was about to feed the baby when I saw he was dead. When I looked at him more closely, I saw that he was not my baby.”
22. But the other woman said, “No! The dead baby is yours, and the one still alive is mine!” But the first woman said, “No, you are wrong! The dead baby is yours! The one that is still alive is mine.” So the two women argued in front of the king.
23. Then King Solomon said, “Each of you says that the living baby is your own and that the dead baby belongs to the other woman.”
24. Then King Solomon sent his servant to get a sword.
25. He told the servant, “Cut the living baby in two and give one half of the baby to each woman.”
26. The second woman said, “Yes, cut him in two. Then neither of us will have him.” But the first woman, the real mother, loved her son and said to the king, “Please, sir, don’t kill the baby! Give him to her.”
27. Then King Solomon said, “Stop, don’t kill the baby. Give him to this woman. She is the real mother.”