23 The king ordered a huge meal to be prepared for Syria's army, and when they finished eating, he let them go.For a while, the Syrian troops stopped invading Israel's territory.
24 Some time later, King Benhadad of Syria called his entire army together, then they marched to Samaria and attacked.
25 They kept up the attack until there was nothing to eat in the city. In fact, a donkey's head cost 80 pieces of silver, and a small bowl of pigeon droppings cost 5 pieces of silver.
26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the top of the city wall, a woman shouted to him, “Please, Your Majesty, help me!”
27 “Let the Lord help you!” the king said. “Do you think I have grain or wine to give you?”
28 Then he asked, “What's the matter anyway?”The woman answered, “Another woman and I were so hungry that we agreed to eat our sons. She said if we ate my son one day, we could eat hers the next day.
29 So yesterday we cooked my son and ate him. But today when I went to her house to eat her son, she had hidden him.”