¹But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: ‘At about this time tomorrow, a seah of fine flour will be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the Gate of Samaria.’ ” ²Then the king's adjutant, with the king leaning on his arm, answered the man of God and said, “Even if the Lord were to make hatches in the sky, would this pronouncement come to pass?” But he said, “Behold, you are about to see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it.” ³Now there were four lepers at the entrance to the gate, and they said to each other, “Why are we sitting here until we die? ⁴If we say, ‘Let us go to the city’, and there is a famine in the city, then we will die there. But if we sit here, then we will also die. So now, let's fall away to the Aramaean camp. If they let us live, we will live, and if they kill us, we will die.” ⁵And they arose in the darkness to go to the Aramaean camp, and to the perimeter of the Aramaean camp they came, and what should they see but there was no-one there. ⁶For the Lord^* had caused the Aramaeans' camp to hear the sound of chariots and the sound of cavalry, and the sound of a large force, and they said to each other, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt against us, to come against us.” ⁷And they arose and fled in the darkness, and they abandoned their tents and their horses and their donkeys. The camp was left as it was, and they fled for their lives. ⁸So these lepers arrived at the perimeter of the camp, and they went into a certain tent, and they ate and drank and took silver and gold from there, and clothes, and they went away and hid them, then they came back and went to another tent, and they took things from there, then they went away and hid them. ⁹And they said to each other, “It's not honest what we are doing. This day is a day of good news, and we are keeping quiet. If we wait until the light of the morning, we will meet with a charge against us. So now, come on, let's go and tell the king's house.” ¹⁰And they went, and they called for the city gatekeeping staff, and they reported to them and said, “We went to the Aramaeans' camp, and what should we see but that there was no-one there, or the sound of a man, except for a bound horse and a bound donkey, and tents left as they were.” ¹¹Then the gatekeeping staff called for and told the people inside the king's house. ¹²And the king got up in the night and said to his servants, “Let me tell you what the Aramaeans have done to us. They know that we are starving, and they have gone out of the camp to hide in the countryside, and they have said, ‘When they come out of the city, we will take them alive and go into the city.’ ” ¹³To this one of his servants answered and said, “Let them take five of the horses which remain – which remain in the city. Here they are, just like the whole population – Israel – which has remained in the city. Here they are, just like the whole population of Israel who are perishing. Let us send them and see what happens.” ¹⁴So they took two chariots and their horses, and the king sent them to the Aramaeans' camp, and he said, “Go and see.” ¹⁵And they went after them as far as the Jordan, and what they saw was that the whole road was full of clothes and weapons which the Aramaeans had discarded in their haste. Then the messengers returned and reported to the king. ¹⁶Then the people went out and plundered the Aramaeans' camp, and it came to pass that a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. ¹⁷Then the king appointed the adjutant on whose arm he had leant to be in charge of the gate, but the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died, as the man of God had said, who had spoken when the king came down to him. ¹⁸So it came to pass as the man of God had said to the king, when he said, “There will be two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel at about this time tomorrow at the Gate of Samaria”, ¹⁹when the adjutant responded to the man of God and said, “Even if the Lord were to make hatches in the sky, would such a pronouncement come to pass?” and when Elisha said, “Behold, you will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it there.” ²⁰And that is what happened to the adjutant, and the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died.