²⁹ So we cooked my son and ate^(A) him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

³⁰ When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore^(B) his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and they saw that, under his robes, he had sackcloth^(C) on his body. ³¹ He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”

³² Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders^(D) were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “Don’t you see how this murderer^(E) is sending someone to cut off my head?^(F) Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s footsteps behind him?” ³³ While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him.

The king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait^(G) for the Lord any longer?”

⁷ He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim^(A) on the walls.