His servants went up to him and said, "Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it. Now why can't you just wash yourself, as he said, and be cured?"

It's no use going into the city, because we would starve to death in there; but if we stay here, we'll die also. So let's go to the Syrian camp; the worst they can do is kill us, but maybe they will spare our lives."

He had hardly finished saying this, when the king arrived and said, "It's the LORD who has brought this trouble on us! Why should I wait any longer for him to do something?"

When I go out in the fields, I see the bodies of men killed in war; when I go into the towns, I see people starving to death. Prophets and priests carry on their work, but they don't know what they are doing."

Those who died in the war were better off than those who died later, who starved slowly to death, with no food to keep them alive.