Elisha Multiplies the Widow’s Oil
1 Now a certain woman among the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared the Lord. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.”
2 Elisha said to her, “What should I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.”
3 Then he said, “Go, borrow empty containers from all your neighbors. Don’t borrow just a few containers. 4 Go in and shut the door after you and your sons and pour oil into all those containers and set aside those which are full.”
5 So she went from him and shut the door after herself and her sons. They brought the containers to her, and she poured oil. 6 When the containers were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.”
He said to her, “There isn’t another container.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 Then she came and told the man of God. He said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons live on the rest.”
The Shunammite Woman
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat some food. So it was, that as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat. 9 She said to her husband, “See now, I perceive that this is a holy man of God who keeps passing by us. 10 Please, let’s make a little room on the roof. Let’s set a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp stand for him there. When he comes to us, he can stay there.”
11 One day he came there, and he went to the room and lay there. 12 He said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. 13 He said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Listen, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What is to be done for you? Would you like to be spoken for to the king or to the captain of the army?’ ”
She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”
14 He said, “What then is to be done for her?”
Gehazi answered, “Most certainly she has no son, and her husband is old.”
15 He said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood in the door. 16 He said, “At this season, when the time comes around, you will be holding a son.”
She said, “No, my lord, man of God, do not lie to your servant.”
17 The woman conceived and bore a son in that season, when the time came around, as Elisha had said to her.
Elisha Raises the Shunammite’s Son
18 When the child was grown, one day he went out to his father to the reapers. 19 He said to his father, “My head! My head!”
He said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
20 When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon and then died. 21 She went up and laid him on the man of God’s bed, shut the door on him, and went out.
22 She called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may run to the man of God, and come back.”
23 He said, “Why would you want me to go to him today? It is not a new moon or a Sabbath.”
She said, “All is well.”
24 Then she saddled a donkey and said to her servant, “Drive forward! Do not slow down for me, unless I ask you to.”
25 So she went, and came to the man of God to Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her from afar, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite. 26 Please run now to meet her and ask her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child?’ ”
She answered, “It is well.”
27 When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to thrust her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is troubled within her, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me’?”
29 Then he said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand, and go your way. If you meet any man, don’t greet him, and if anyone greets you, don’t answer him back. Then lay my staff on the child’s face.”
30 The child’s mother said, “As the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.”
So he got up and followed her.
31 Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the child’s face, but there was no voice and no hearing. Therefore he returned to meet him and told him, “The child has not awakened.”
32 When Elisha had come into the house, the child was dead and lying on his bed. 33 He went in therefore, shut the door on both of them, and prayed to God. 34 He went up, lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. He stretched himself on him. and the child’s flesh grew warm. 35 Then he returned and walked in the house once back and forth, and went up, and stretched himself out on him. Then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 He called Gehazi, and said, “Call this Shunammite!” So he called her.
When she had come in to him, he said, “Take up your son.”
37 Then she went in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
Elisha Purifies the Poisonous Stew
38 Elisha returned to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39 One went out into the field to gather herbs. He found a wild vine and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it and came back and shredded them into the pot of stew, although they did not recognize them.
40 So they served it for the men to eat. As they were eating some of the stew, they cried out and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” and they could not eat it.
41 But he said, “Then bring grain.” He threw it into the pot, and he said, “Serve it to the people, that they may eat,” and there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42 A man from Baal Shalishah came and brought the man of God some bread of the first fruits: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. He said, “Give it to the people that they may eat.”
43 His servant said, “What, should I set this before a hundred men?”
But he said, “Give it to the people that they may eat, for the Lord says, ‘They will eat and will have some left over.’ ”
44 So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.