2 Kings 7:11-20

11The guards at the city gate then shouted the news. People in the king's palace heard the news.

12The king got up in the middle of the night. He said to his officers, ‘I will tell you what the Syrian soldiers have done to deceive us. They know that we have no food. So they have left their tents and they have hidden in the fields. They are thinking, “The Israelites will surely come out of the city. Then we will catch them while they are still alive. We will then get into their city.” ’

13One of the king's officers answered him, ‘Send some men with five of the horses that are still in our city. We will see what happens to them. All of us Israelites in the city will soon die. If the Syrian soldiers kill those men, they would have died anyway. So send them out of the city to find out what is happening.’

14So they prepared two chariots with their horses. The king sent the men to see what had happened to the Syrian army. He commanded the men, ‘Go and look for them.’

15The king's men followed the Syrian soldiers as far as the Jordan River. They saw many things that the soldiers had dropped along the road. They had dropped clothes and weapons because they were in a hurry to run away. So the men returned to the king. They told him what they had seen.

16Then the people in Samaria went out of the city. They took all the valuable things from the Syrian soldiers' tents. So then people could buy five kilograms of good flour for one piece of silver. They could also buy ten kilograms of barley for one piece of silver. That is what the Lord had said would happen.

17The king had told his special officer to stand at the gate of the city. When the people ran out of the city, they knocked him down. He fell under their feet and he died. The man of God had already said that this would happen, when the king had come to his house.

18Elisha had said to the king, ‘This time tomorrow, five kilograms of good flour will cost only one piece of silver. Ten kilograms of barley will also cost one piece of silver. You will be able to buy this food at the gate of Samaria.’

19But the officer had replied to the man of God, ‘That will never happen! Even if the Lord opens the skies and sends us rain, it could not happen so soon.’ Elisha had said, ‘You yourself will see this happen, but you will not eat any of the food!’

20That is what really happened to him! At the city gate, the people ran over the king's officer and he died.