2 Kings 7:3-5

7:3 Now four men with a skin disease ¹  were sitting at the entrance of the city gate. They said to one another, “Why are we just sitting here waiting to die? ²  7:4 If we go into the city, we’ll die of starvation, ³  and if we stay here we’ll die! So come on, let’s defect ⁴  to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, ⁵  we’ll live; if they kill us – well, we were going to die anyway.” ⁶  7:5 So they started toward ⁷  the Syrian camp at dusk. When they reached the edge of the Syrian camp, there was no one there.

[7:3]  ¹ sn See the note at 2 Kgs 5:1.

[7:3]  ² tn Heb “until we die.”

[7:4]  ³ tn Heb “If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city and we will die there.”

[7:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “fall.”

[7:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “keep us alive.”

[7:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “we will die.” The paraphrastic translation attempts to bring out the logical force of their reasoning.

[7:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “they arose to go to.”