2 Kings 6:24-29

Common English Bible

Ben-hadad attacks Samaria

²⁴ Now it happened later that Aram’s King Ben-hadad gathered all his forces and went up to attack Samaria. ²⁵ The siege lasted so long that there was a great famine in Samaria. A donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a quarter kab of doves’ dung^[a] for five shekels. ²⁶ Israel’s king was passing by on the city wall when a woman appealed to him, “Help me, Your Majesty!”

²⁷ The king said, “No! May the Lord help you! Where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?” ²⁸ But then the king asked her, “What’s troubling you?”

She answered, “A woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we can eat him today; we’ll eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we cooked and ate my son. The next day I said to her, ‘Hand over your son so we can eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”