16 One day two prostitutes came to the king and stood in front of him, 17 and one of them said, “Please, my master, us two women live in the same house, and while she was there in the house, I gave birth to a baby. 18 Three days later, this woman also gave birth to her baby. Only the two of us were there in the house—no one else was around. 19 But then in the night, her son died because she rolled over onto him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me, as your female servant was asleep. She left her dead son with me, and took my son to her bed. 21 When I woke up in the morning ready to breastfeed my son, to my horror he was dead. However when I examined him closely in the light, more shock, it wasn’t actually my son!”

22 “No, my son is the living one,” the other woman said, “and your son is the dead one.”

“No, your son is the dead one,” the first woman countered, “and my son is the living one!”

Then they continued to argue in front of the king.

23 The king spoke, “So both of you are claiming that your baby is the one that’s alive and that the dead one belongs to the other.” 24 Then he ordered, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword to the king. 25 Then the king commanded, “Cut the living child into two pieces and give them half each.”

26 But the mother of the surviving baby felt compassion for her son and yelled, “Please, my master, give the baby to her—you certainly mustn’t kill him!”

Meanwhile the other woman was saying, “Well then, neither of us will have him. Cut him in half!”

27 The king spoke up, “Don’t harm the baby. Give the living child to the first woman—she’s his mother.”

28 All Israel eventually heard about this case that the king had judged, and they felt an awesome respect for him because they saw that he had God’s wisdom to do justice within him.