2 Kings 4-5
2KI.4
The Widow’s Oil
1Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”
2“How can I help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
3“Go,” said Elisha, “borrow empty jars from all your neighbors. Do not gather just a few. 4Then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all these jars, setting the full ones aside.”
5So she left him, and after she had shut the door behind her and her sons, they kept bringing jars to her, and she kept pouring. 6When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another.”
But he replied, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live on the remainder.”
The Shunammite Woman
8One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.
9Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God. 10Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.”
11One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down. 12And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.”
And when he had called her, she stood before him, 13and Elisha said to Gehazi, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’”
“I have a home among my own people,” she replied.
14So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?”
“Well, she has no son,” Gehazi replied, “and her husband is old.”
15“Call her,” said Elisha.
So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16And Elisha declared, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.”
“No, my lord,” she said. “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God.”
17But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
Elisha Raises the Shunammite’s Son
18And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.
19“My head! My head!” he complained to his father.
So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
20After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. 21And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out.
22And the woman called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return.”
23“Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.”
“Everything is all right,” she said.
24Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman. 26Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’”
And she answered, “Everything is all right.”
27When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
28Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
29So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment, take my staff in your hand, and go! If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
30And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
31Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
32When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed. 33So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.
34Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm. 35Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came.
Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”
37She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
Elisha Purifies the Poisonous Stew
38When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, he said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39One of them went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment could hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.
40And they poured it out for the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they cried out, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!” And they could not eat it.
41Then Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Pour it out for the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
Feeding a Hundred Men
42Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain.
“Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.
43But his servant asked, “How am I to set twenty loaves before a hundred men?”
“Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha, “for this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”
44So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
2KI.5
Naaman Cured of Leprosy
1Now Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in his master’s sight and highly regarded, for through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. And he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
2At this time the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken a young girl from the land of Israel, and she was serving Naaman’s wife. 3She said to her mistress, “If only my master would go to the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.”
4And Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
5“Go now,” said the king of Aram, “and I will send you with a letter to the king of Israel.”
So Naaman departed, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of clothing.
6And the letter that he took to the king of Israel stated: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a leper? Surely you can see that he is seeking a quarrel with me!”
8Now when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let the man come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”
11But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy. 12Are not the Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not have washed in them and been cleansed?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
13Naaman’s servants, however, approached him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’?”
14So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean.
Gehazi’s Greed and Leprosy
15Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
16But Elisha replied, “As surely as the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will not accept it.” And although Naaman urged him to accept it, he refused.
17“If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much soil as a pair of mules can carry. For your servant will never again make a burnt offering or a sacrifice to any other god but the LORD. 18Yet may the LORD forgive your servant this one thing: When my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my arm, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant in this matter.”
19“Go in peace,” said Elisha.
But after Naaman had traveled a short distance, 20Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “Look, my master has spared this Aramean, Naaman, by not accepting what he brought. As surely as the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
21So Gehazi pursued Naaman. And when Naaman saw him running toward him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and asked, “Is everything all right?”
22“Everything is all right,” Gehazi replied. “My master has sent me to say, ‘Look, two young men from the sons of the prophets have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing.’”
23But Naaman insisted, “Please, take two talents.” And he urged Gehazi to accept them. Then he tied up two talents of silver in two bags along with two sets of clothing and gave them to two of his servants, who carried them ahead of Gehazi.
24When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the gifts from the servants and stored them in the house. Then he dismissed the men, and they departed.
25When Gehazi went in and stood before his master, Elisha asked him, “Gehazi, where have you been?”
“Your servant did not go anywhere,” he replied.
26But Elisha questioned him, “Did not my spirit go with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to accept money and clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, menservants and maidservants? 27Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman will cling to you and your descendants forever!”
And as Gehazi left his presence, he was leprous— as white as snow.