﻿2 Kings.
Chapter 4.
The wife of one of the company of prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know that your servant feared the LORD, but the creditor has come to take my two children as his slaves.” 
Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She said, “Your servant has nothing at all in the house except a jar of oil.” 
He said, “Go and borrow containers from all your neighbors—empty containers, and not just a few. 
Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all these containers, setting each one aside when it is full.” 
She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the containers to her, and she poured. 
When the containers were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.” He said to her, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 
She went and told the man of God. He said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt. You and your sons can live on what is left.” 
One day Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a woman of means who urged him to stay for a meal. After that, whenever he passed through, he would stop there to eat. 
She said to her husband, “Look, I know that this man who regularly passes our way is a holy man of God. 
Let us make a small upstairs room with walls and put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand there for him. Then he can stay there when he comes to us.” 
One day he came there, went up to the room, and lay down. 
He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call this Shunammite woman.” He called her, and she stood before him. 
He said to Gehazi, “Please tell her, ‘You have taken all this trouble for us. What can be done for you? Would you like us to speak to the king or the commander of the army on your behalf?’” She said, “I live among my own people.” 
He said, “What, then, can be done for her?” Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” 
He said, “Call her.” He called her, and she stood in the doorway. 
He said, “At this time next year, you will be holding a son in your arms.” She said, “No, my lord, man of God! Do not deceive your servant.” 
The woman conceived and bore a son at that time the following year, just as Elisha had told her. 
The child grew, and one day he went out to his father among the reapers. 
He said to his father, “My head! My head!” His father said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 
He carried him and brought him to his mother. The child sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. 
She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door behind him, and went out. 
She called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the female donkeys, so I can hurry to the man of God and return.” 
He said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the new moon nor the Sabbath.” She said, “All is well.” 
She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Drive on. Do not slow down for me unless I tell you.” 
So she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her in the distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman. 
Please run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you well? Is your husband well? Is the child well?’” She said, “All is well.” 
When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is in bitter distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.” 
She said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me’?” 
He said to Gehazi, “Tuck up your robe, take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the child’s face.” 
But 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. 
Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the child’s face, but there was no sound or response. He went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The child has not awakened.” 
When Elisha entered the house, there was the child, dead and lying on his bed. 
He went in, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. 
Then he went up and lay on the child, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. He stretched himself over him, and the child’s body grew warm. 
He got up and walked back and forth in the house, then went up and stretched himself over him again. The child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. 
Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite woman.” He called her, and she came to him. He said, “Pick up your son.” 
She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out. 
Elisha returned to Gilgal while there was a famine in the land. The company of prophets was sitting before him, and he said to his servant, “Put the large pot on the fire and cook a stew for the company of prophets.” 
One of them went out into the field to gather herbs. He found a wild vine and gathered a cloakful of wild gourds from it. He came back and sliced them into the stew pot, though they did not know what they were. 
They served it to the men to eat, but as they tasted the stew, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” They could not eat it. 
He said, “Bring some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people so they can eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot. 
A man came from Baal-shalisha and brought the man of God bread from the firstfruits: twenty barley loaves and fresh grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.” 
His attendant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” But he said, “Give it to the people to eat, for this is what the LORD says: They will eat and have some left over.” 
So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD. 
