Two women stood before King Solomon. One said, “This woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Three days later, this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. No stranger was in the house--only the two of us were in the house.”

The first woman pointed to the second woman and continued: “This woman’s son died in the night because she lay on it. So she arose in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while I slept, and laid him in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom. When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, he was dead, but I looked at him carefully and saw he was not my son.”

The second woman declared, “No! The living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.”

The king said, “Get me a sword. Divide the living child in two. Give half to the one, and give half to the other.”

Then the first woman (whose child was the living one) spoke to the king: “Oh, my lord, give her the living child. Do not kill the child.”

The second woman said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; divide him!”

The king said, “Give the first woman the living child. Do not kill him. She is his mother.”








1 Kings 3:16-28 = two women, a baby, King Solomon (I teach this since the Huck Finn novel covers it)