This haftarah opens with four men suffering from tzaraat sitting outside the gate of Samaria, a city under a siege so severe that famine has driven prices to extreme levels and desperate acts have begun among the population inside. Reasoning that staying put means certain death by starvation while entering the enemy Aramean camp offers at least a chance of survival, the four decide to surrender themselves to the besiegers rather than wait to die.
Arriving at the edge of the camp, they find it completely abandoned, the Arameans having fled in panic after hearing what sounded to them like the approach of a great army, leaving behind tents, horses, donkeys and provisions exactly as they had been in daily use. The men eat and drink their fill and begin gathering plunder for themselves before recognizing that withholding this news from the starving city would be wrong.
The haftarah closes with the men reporting the discovery to the city, the news reaching the king, and the population rushing out to plunder the abandoned camp, so that the famine ends abruptly and prices fall exactly as Elisha had earlier predicted, fulfilling a prophecy an official who had doubted it is trampled to death while witnessing.