¹² The king arose in the night, and said to his servants, I will now show you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore are they gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive, and get into the city.

⁴ He commanded them, saying, Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city, behind the city; don't go very far from the city, but be all ready:

²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria: and, 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, there cried a woman to him, saying, Help, my lord, O king.

²⁷ He said, If Yahweh doesn't help you, whence shall I help you? out of the threshing floor, or out of the winepress?

²⁸ The king said to her, What ails you? 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 hid her son.