2 Kings 7

The Famine Ends & the Arameans Dip Out

1 Then Elisha said, “Listen up! This is what the Lord says: ‘By this time tomorrow, around this time, a bushel of fine flour is going to be sold for about two ounces of silver, and two bushels of barley for about two ounces of silver, right here at the gate of Samaria!’”

2 The officer, whose arm the king was leaning on, answered the man of God, “Even if the Lord opened up windows in heaven, could this really happen,” Elisha said, “Look, you are going to see it with your own eyes, but you are not going to eat none of it!”

3 Now, there were four lepers chilling by the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why we just sitting here waiting to die?”

4 “If we say, ‘Let us go into the city,’ the famine is in the city, so we are going to die there. And if we sit here, we are going to die here too. So let us just go over to the Aramean camp. If they let us live, we live. If they kill us, we die.”

5 So they got up at dusk to go to the Aramean camp. When they got to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was not anybody there!

6 Because the Lord had made the Aramean army hear the sound of chariots, horses, and a huge army. They told each other, “Look, the king of Israel hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come at us!”

7 So they panicked and bounced at dusk, leaving behind their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, the whole camp just as it was, and they ran for their lives.

8 When these lepers got to the edge of the camp, they went into one tent, ate and drank, and then snatched some silver, gold, and clothes, and went and hid them. Then they came back and went into another tent and snatched some more stuff and hid that too.

9 Then they told each other, “What we are doing is not right. This day is about good news, and we keeping it to ourselves! If we wait till daylight, we are going to get caught. So let us go now and tell the king’s household.”

10 So they came and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We rolled up to the Aramean camp, and there was not anybody there, no human voice, only horses and donkeys tied up, and the tents just as they were!”

11 The gatekeepers yelled it out, and it was told inside the king’s palace.

12 The king got up in the middle of the night and told his officials, “I will tell you what the Arameans did to us. They know we starving, so they dipped from the camp and hid in the field, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will grab them alive and get into the city!’”

13 But one of his officials answered, “Listen, let some of the remaining horses here, there are only five left, go out and check. They are just like the whole crowd of Israel that is left here; they are already going to die anyway.”

14 So they took two chariots with horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go see what is up!”

15 They chased them all the way to the Jordan, and look, the whole road was covered with clothes and equipment that the Arameans had tossed in their hurry. The messengers came back and told the king.

16 Then the people went out and plundered the Aramean camp. So a bushel of fine flour was sold for about two ounces of silver, and two bushels of barley for about two ounces of silver, exactly according to the word of the Lord.

17 Now, the king had put the officer, whose arm he was leaning on, in charge of the gate. And the people stomped him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

18 Because it went down exactly like the man of God had told the king: “Two bushels of barley for about two ounces of silver, and a bushel of fine flour for about two ounces of silver, going to be sold at the gate of Samaria by this time tomorrow.”

19 And that officer had answered the man of God, saying, “Even if the Lord opened up windows in heaven, could this really happen,” And Elisha had said, “Look, you are going to see it with your own eyes, but you are not going to eat none of it!”

20 And that is exactly what happened to him: the people stomped him in the gate, and he died.