1 The sons of the prophets told Elisha, "As you can see, the place where we live under your oversight is too small for us.
2 Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a log, and let us build ourselves a place to live there." "Go," he said.
3 Then one of them said, "Please come along with your servants." "I will come," he answered.
4 So he went with them. They came to the Jordan and began cutting down trees.
5 As one of them was cutting down a log, the iron head fell into the water. "Oh, my lord!" he cried. "It was a borrowed one!"
6 "Where did it fall?" asked the man of God. When he pointed out the spot, Elisha cut a stick, threw it in there and made the iron float.
7 "Lift it out," he said. And the man reached out his hand and took it.
8 The king of Syria was at war with Israel. After conferring with his servants he would say, "My camp will be at such and such a place."
9 But the man of God would send word to the king of Israel: "Beware of passing that place, for the Syrians are going down there."
10 The king of Israel would then send men to the place the man of God had told him about. Time and again Elisha warned him, and he kept on his guard there, more than once or twice.
11 This greatly troubled the heart of the king of Syria. He summoned his servants and demanded, "Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?"
12 One of his servants said, "No one, my lord the king. It is Elisha, the prophet in Israel, who tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom."
13 "Go and find out where he is," he ordered, "so I can send men to capture him." He was told, "He is in Dothan."
14 So he sent horses, chariots and a large force there. They arrived by night and encircled the town.
15 Early the next morning the servant of the man of God got up and went outside, and there was an army with horses and chariots encircling the town. "Oh, my lord, what are we to do?" his servant asked him.
16 "Do not be afraid," he answered. "There are more with us than with them."
17 Elisha prayed, "LORD, open his eyes, please, so he can see." The LORD opened the young man's eyes, and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.
18 As the Syrians came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, "Please strike these people with blindness." And he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.
19 Elisha told them, "This is not the road, and this is not the town. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for." And he led them to Samaria.
20 When they had come into Samaria, Elisha said, "LORD, open these men's eyes so they can see." The LORD opened their eyes, and they saw that they were inside Samaria.
21 On seeing them, the king of Israel asked Elisha, "Shall I strike them down, my father? Shall I strike them down?"
22 "Do not strike them down," he answered. "Do you strike down men you have captured with your own sword and bow? Set food and water before them so they can eat and drink and then go back to their master."
23 So he laid on a great meal for them, and after they had eaten and drunk he sent them away, and they went back to their master. And the Syrian raiding parties stopped coming into Israel's territory.
24 Some time later Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his whole army, marched up and laid siege to Samaria.
25 A great famine came over Samaria. They kept up the siege until a donkey's head sold for eighty shekels of silver and a quarter of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.
26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall, a woman called out to him, "Save me, my lord the king!"
27 He said, "If the LORD does not save you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?"
28 Then the king asked her, "What is wrong?" She answered, "This woman told me, 'Hand over your son so we can eat him today, and tomorrow we will eat my son.'
29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her, 'Hand over your son so we can eat him,' but she has hidden her son."
30 When the king heard what the woman said, he tore his clothes. As he walked along the wall, the people looked, and there underneath, against his body, was sackcloth.
31 He said, "May God do so to me and more, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat stays on his shoulders today!"
32 Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders sitting there with him. The king sent a man on ahead, but before the messenger reached him, Elisha told the elders, "Do you see how this murderer's son has sent someone to cut off my head? Watch, and when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master's footsteps right behind him?"
33 He was still talking with them when the messenger came down to him and said, "This evil comes from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?"