18. When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to Adonai and said, “Please strike this people with blinding light.” So He struck them with blinding light according to the word of Elisha.
19. Then Elisha said to them, “This is not the road, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man whom you seek.” So he led them to Samaria.
20. Upon their arrival in Samaria, Elisha said, “Adonai, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.” So Adonai opened their eyes, and they could see—behold, they were in the middle of Samaria.
21. When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Shall I surely strike them down, Avi?”
22. “Don’t strike them down,” he replied. “Would you strike down those whom you have captured with your own sword and bow? Set before them bread and water that they may eat and drink and go back to their master.”
23. So he prepared a great feast for them. After they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went back to their master. Ever since, the marauding bands of Aram stopped invading the land of Israel.
24. Now it came to pass after this, that King Ben-hadad of Aram gathered all his army and marched against Samaria and besieged it.
25. Now there was a great famine in Samaria, since they were besieging it, until a donkey’s head was sold for 80 pieces of silver, and the quarter of a kav of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
26. As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him saying, “My lord the king, help!”
27. But he said, “If Adonai doesn’t help you, how would I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?”
28. Then the king asked her, “What’s the matter with you?” She answered, “This woman said to me: ‘Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’