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2 Kings 7 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

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Elisha Promises Food

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:1 - But Elisha said, “Hear the word of the LORD: thus says the LORD, Tomorrow about this time a seah[fn] of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel,[fn] and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:2 - Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned said to the man of God, “If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” But he said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”

The Syrians Flee

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:3 - Now there were four men who were lepers[fn] at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:4 - If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:5 - So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:6 - For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:7 - So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:8 - And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:9 - Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:10 - So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold, there was no one to be seen or heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied and the tents as they were.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:11 - Then the gatekeepers called out, and it was told within the king’s household.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:12 - And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:13 - And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:14 - So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:15 - So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:16 - Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So 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.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:17 - Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. And the people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:18 - For when the man of God had said to the king, “Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate of Samaria,”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:19 - the captain had answered the man of God, “If the LORD himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?” And he had said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 7:20 - And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate and he died.
ESV Footnotes
A seah was about 7 quarts or 7.3 liters
A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
Leprosy was a term for several skin diseases; see Leviticus 13
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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