Dual Panel1The wife of one of the prophets appealed to Elisha. “My husband, your servant, has died,” she said, “and you know that he was a man who feared the LORD. Now a creditor has come to take away my two boys as slaves.”
2Elisha asked her, “How can I help you? Tell me what you have in the house.” “Nothing at all,” she answered, “except a flask of oil.”
3“Go out”, he said, “and borrow vessels from everyone in the neighbourhood; get as many empty ones as you can.
4When you come home, shut yourself in with your sons; then pour from the flask into all the vessels and, as they are filled, set them aside.”
5She left him and shut herself indoors with her sons. As they brought her the vessels she filled them.
6When they were all full, she said to one of her sons, “Bring me another.” “There are none left,” he replied. Then the flow of oil ceased.
7She came out and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay off your debt, and you and your sons can live on what is left.”
8IT happened once that Elisha went over to Shunem. There was a well-to-do woman there who pressed him to accept hospitality, and afterwards whenever he came that way, he stopped there for a meal.
9One day she said to her husband, “I know that this man who comes here regularly is a holy man of God.
10Why not build up the wall to make him a small roof-chamber, and put in it a bed, a table, a seat, and a lamp, and let him stay there whenever he comes to us?”
11One time when he arrived there and went to this roof-chamber to lie down,
12he said to Gehazi, his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” When he called her and she appeared before the prophet,
13Elisha said to his servant, “Say to her, ‘You have taken all this trouble for us. What can I do for you? Shall I speak for you to the king or to the commander-in-chief?’” But she replied, “I am content where I am, among my own people.”
14He said, “Then what can be done for her?” Gehazi said, “There is only this: she has no child and her husband is old.”
15“Call her back,” Elisha said. When she was called and appeared in the doorway,
16he said, “In due season, this time next year, you will have a son in your arms.” But she said, “No, no, my lord, you are a man of God and would not lie to your servant.”
17Next year in due season the woman conceived and bore a son, as Elisha had foretold.
18When the child was old enough, he went out one day to his father among the reapers.
19All of a sudden he cried out to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” His father told a servant to carry the child to his mother,
20and when he was brought to her, he sat on her lap till midday, and then he died.
21She went up, laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door, and went out.
22She called her husband and said, “Send me one of the servants and a she-donkey; I must go to the man of God as fast as I can, and come straight back.”
23“Why go to him today?” he asked. “It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” “Never mind that,” she answered.
24When the donkey was saddled, she said to her servant, “Lead on and do not slacken pace unless I tell you.”
25So she set out and came to the man of God on Mount Carmel. The man of God spied her in the distance and said to Gehazi, his servant, “That is the Shunammite woman coming.
26Run and meet her, and ask, ‘Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the boy?’” She answered, “All is well.”
27When she reached the man of God on the hill, she clutched his feet. Gehazi came forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Let her alone; she is in great distress, and the LORD has concealed it from me and not told me.”
28“My lord,” she said, “did I ask for a son? Did I not beg you not to raise my hopes and then dash them?”
29Elisha turned to Gehazi: “Hitch up your cloak; take my staff with you and run. If you meet anyone on the way, do not stop to greet him; if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy's face.”
30But the mother cried, “As the LORD lives, your life upon it, I shall not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
31Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy's face, but there was no sound or sign of life, so he went back to meet Elisha and told him that the boy had not stirred.
32When Elisha entered the house, there was the dead boy, where he had been laid on the bed.
33He went into the room, shut the door on the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.
34Then, getting on to the bed, he lay upon the child, put his mouth to the child's mouth, his eyes to his eyes, and his hands to his hands; as he crouched upon him, the child's body grew warm.
35Elisha got up and walked once up and down the room; getting on to the bed again, he crouched upon him and breathed into him seven times, and the boy opened his eyes.
36The prophet summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” She answered his call and the prophet said, “Take up your child.”
37She came in and prostrated herself before him. Then she took up her son and went out.
38ELISHA returned to Gilgal at a time when there was a famine in the land. One day, when a group of prophets was sitting at his feet, he said to his servant, “Set the big pot on the fire and prepare broth for the company.”
39One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine, and filled the skirt of his garment with wild gourds. He came back and sliced them into the pot, not knowing what they were.
40The broth was poured out for the men to eat but, on tasting it, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot,” and they could not eat it.
41The prophet said, “Fetch some meal.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour out for the people to eat.” This time there was no harm in the pot.
42A MAN came from Baal-shalisha, bringing the man of God some of the new season's bread, twenty barley loaves, and fresh ripe ears of grain. Elisha said, “Give this to the people to eat.”
43His attendant protested, “I cannot set this before a hundred people.” Still he insisted, “Give it to the people to eat; for this is the word of the LORD: They will eat and there will be some left over.”
44So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, as the LORD had said.