2 Kings
4
- The wife of a man from the company of the
prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you
know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two
boys as his slaves."
- Elisha replied to her, "How can I help
you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant has
nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil."
- Elisha said, "Go around and ask all
your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few.
- Then go inside and shut the door behind
you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put
it to one side."
- She left him and afterward shut the door
behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.
- When all the jars were full, she said to
her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is
not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.
- She went and told the man of God, and he
said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live
on what is left."
- One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do
woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by,
he stopped there to eat.
- She said to her husband, "I know that
this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God.
- Let's make a small room on the roof and
put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay
there whenever he comes to us."
- One day when Elisha came, he went up to
his room and lay down there.
- He said to his servant Gehazi, "Call
the Shunammite." So he called her, and she stood before him.
- Elisha said to him, "Tell her, 'You
have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we
speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?'" She
replied, "I have a home among my own people."
- "What can be done for her?" Elisha
asked. Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son and her husband is old."
- Then Elisha said, "Call her."
So he called her, and she stood in the doorway.
- "About this time next year," Elisha
said, "you will hold a son in your arms." "No, my lord,"
she objected. "Don't mislead your servant, O man of God !"
- But the woman became pregnant, and the next
year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told
her.
- The child grew, and one day he went out
to his father, who was with the reapers.
- "My head! My head!" he said to
his father. His father told a servant, "Carry him to his mother."
- After the servant had lifted him up and
carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he
died.
- She went up and laid him on the bed of the
man of God, then shut the door and went out.
- She called her husband and said, "Please
send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly
and return."
- "Why go to him today?" he asked.
"It's not the New Moon or the Sabbath." "It's all right,"
she said.
- She saddled the donkey and said to her servant,
"Lead on; don't slow down for me unless I tell you."
- So she set out and came to the man of God
at Mount Carmel. When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his
servant Gehazi, "Look! There's the Shunammite !
- Run to meet her and ask her, 'Are you all
right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?'" "Everything
is all right," she said.
- When she reached the man of God at the mountain,
she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man
of God said, "Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD
has hidden it from me and has not told me why."
- "Did I ask you for a son, my lord?"
she said. "Didn't I tell you, 'Don't raise my hopes' ?"
- Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tuck your cloak
into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. If you meet anyone, do
not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the
boy's face."
- But the child's mother said, "As surely
as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So he got up
and followed her.
- Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff
on the boy's face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back
to meet Elisha and told him, "The boy has not awakened."
- When Elisha reached the house, there was
the boy lying dead on his couch.
- He went in, shut the door on the two of
them and prayed to the LORD.
- Then he got on the bed and lay upon the
boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself
out upon him, the boy's body grew warm.
- Elisha turned away and walked back and forth
in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more.
The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
- Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call
the Shunammite." And he did. When she came, he said, "Take your
son."
- She came in, fell at his feet and bowed
to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.
- Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was
a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with
him, he said to his servant, "Put on the large pot and cook some stew
for these men."
- One of them went out into the fields to
gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled
the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew,
though no one knew what they were.
- The stew was poured out for the men, but
as they began to eat it, they cried out, "O man of God, there is death
in the pot!" And they could not eat it.
- Elisha said, "Get some flour."
He put it into the pot and said, "Serve it to the people to eat."
And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
- A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing
the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain,
along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat,"
Elisha said.
- "How can I set this before a hundred
men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people
to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left
over.'"
- Then he set it before them, and they ate
and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
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