21. The king of Israel said to Elisha, when he saw them, “My father, shall I strike them? Shall I strike them?”
22. He answered, “You shall not strike them. Would you strike those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.”
23. He prepared a great feast for them. When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria stopped raiding Eretz-Israel.
24. After this, Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.
25. There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
26. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
27. He said, “If the Lord doesn’t help you, where could I get help for you? From of the threshing floor, or from the wine press?”
28. The king said to her, “What is your problem?”She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’
29. So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”
30. When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body.
31. Then he said, “God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stays on him today.”