2 Kings 4
Elisha duplicates oil
Now the prophet guild had a member whose wife cried to Elisha,
“My husband who was your servant my is dead. You know how much he feared the Existing One, but now the tax collector came to take away my children as slaves.”
Elisha replied,
“What can I do for you? Tell me: what do you have in your house?”
She answered,
“I don’t have anything except for a jar of oil.”
Then he said,
“Go borrow lots of containers from all your neighbors and empty them out. Then go inside, close the door, and pour oil into all the containers. When one is full, set it aside.”
So she did just that. Her sons brought her the containers, and she poured oil into them. When all the containers were full, she told her son to bring more, but he told, her that there were none left. Then the oil stopped flowing. She reported back to the man of God, and he said,
“Go sell the oil and use that money to pay off your debts and you and your sons can live off the rest.”
Elisha foretells son’s birth
One day Elisha went to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived who always urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed by there, he would stop by to eat. She told her husband,
“I think this guy is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room for him on the roof with walls, a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he stops by, he can stay there.”
One day he went there to get some rest, and he said to his servant Gehazi,
“Call the Shunammite up here.”
When she came, he told his servant,
“Tell her, ‘You’be gone through all this trouble for us; what can do for you in return? Is there a message you’d like for us to relay to the king or military commander for you?’”
She answered,
“I live among my own people.”
Elisha still wanted to find something to do for her, so Gehazi suggested,
“Well, she doesn’t have a son, and her husband is old.”
Elisha instructed him to call her, and when she came, he said,
“Around this time next year you will be holding a son.”
And she said,
“No, my master, oh man of God; please don’t lie to me.”
But the woman conceived, and bore a son the next spring, just as Elisha had said.
Son dies, mother seeks Elisha
One day when the child was a little older, he ran out to his dad in the wheat field exclaiming,
“Ow, my head! My head!”
The father commanded his servant,
“Quick, carry him to his mother.”
And when he brought him to his mother, the son sat on her lap till noon and then died. She went up, laid him on Elisha’s bed, closed the door, and went out to her husband saying,
“Quick, send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go find the man of God.”
He said,
“Why do you want to see him today? It isn’t the new moon nor the Sabbath.”
She said,
“Don’t worry, everything’s fine.”
Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant,
“Go as quickly as you can; don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”
So she set out and made to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the Man of God saw her approaching, he said to his servant Gehazi,
“Look, there’s the Shunammite. Run up to her and ask, ‘Is everything okay with you and your family?’”
She answered,
“Everything is ok,”
but when she reached the man of God, she grabbed his feet. Gehazi came to defend him, but Elisha said,
“Leave her alone. She’s bitterly distressed, and the Existing One hasn’t told me about it.”
Then she asked,
“Did I ask you for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t lie to me?’”
He told Ghazi,
“Hike up your robe, take my staff and go. If anyone greets you, just ignore them and keep going. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
Then the mother said,
“As surely as the Existing One lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”
So he got up and followed her. Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but nothing happened, and there was no sign of life. So he went back and found them, reporting,
“The boy hasn’t awakened.”
Boy wakes up
When Elisha got to the house, he saw the child dead on his bed. He went in and closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Existing One. Then he lay on the child, putting his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands. As he stretched himself over him, the boy’s body became warm. Then he stood up and walked back and forth once through the whole house, before stretching himself out over him. The child sneezed seven times and then the child opened his eyes. He called Gehazi and said,
“Call the Shunammite,”
and when she came, Elisha said,
“Pick up your son.”
She fell at his feet, bowing to the ground, and then picked up her son and carried him out.
Elisha negates poison
Elisha went to Gilgal again when there was a famine. When the prophets guild was gathered around him, he told his servant,
“Heat up the large pot and cook a stew for the prophets guild.”
One of them went out to gather herbs and brought back a bunch of wild gourds not knowing what they were. When the stew was ready, they started serving it to some of the men, but some cried out,
“Man of God, this stew is poisoned!”
And they couldn’t eat it. He said,
“Then bring flour.”
And he threw it into the pot and said,
“Serve it to the men so they can eat it,”
and the stew didn’t harm anyone.
Elisha duplicates bread
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing the man of God the firstfruits of the bread he made: twenty loaves of barley and fresh grain in a bag. Elisha said,
“Give it to the men, so they can eat.”
But his servant said,
“How can I divide this up between a hundred men?”
So Elisha repeated,
“Give it to the men, so that they can eat, because this is what the Existing One says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”
So he set it in front of them, and they ate and had some left over, just like the Existing One’s message had said.