HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 700
2 KIN G S 4
creditor has come, threatening to take my two
sons as slaves.”
2 “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked.
“Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
“Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,”
she replied.
3 And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty
jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.
4 Then go into your house with your sons and
shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from
your flask into the jars, setting each one aside
when it is filled.”
5 So she did as she was told. Her sons kept
bringing jars to her, and she filled one after
another. 6 Soon every container was full to the
brim!
“Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her
sons.
“There aren’t any more!” he told her. And
then the olive oil stopped flowing.
7 When she told the man of God what had
happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive
oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons
can live on what is left over.”
Elisha and the Woman from Shunem
8 One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem.
A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged
him to come to her home for a meal. After that,
whenever he passed that way, he would stop
there for something to eat.
9 She said to her husband, “I am sure this
man who stops in from time to time is a holy
man of God. 10 Let’s build a small room for him
on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table,
a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place
to stay whenever he comes by.”
11 One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and
he went up to this upper room to rest. 12 He said
to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from
Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared, 13 Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘We
appreciate the kind concern you have shown us.
What can we do for you? Can we put in a good
word for you to the king or to the commander
of the army?’”
“No,” she replied, “my family takes good care
of me.”
14 Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we
do for her?”
Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and
her husband is an old man.”
15 “Call her back again,” Elisha told him.
When the woman returned, Elisha said to her
as she stood in the doorway, 16 “Next year at this
time you will be holding a son in your arms!”
“No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God,
don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”
17 But sure enough, the woman soon became
pregnant. And at that time the following year
she had a son, just as Elisha had said.
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18 One day when her child was older, he went
out to help his father, who was working with the
harvesters. 19 Suddenly he cried out, “My head
hurts! My head hurts!”
His father said to one of the servants, “Carry
him home to his mother.”
20 So the servant took him home, and his
mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. 21 She carried him up and laid him
on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door
and left him there. 22 She sent a message to her
husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and
come right back.”
23 “Why go today?” he asked. “It is neither a
new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”
But she said, “It will be all right.”
24 So she saddled the donkey and said to the
servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell
you to.”
25 As she approached the man of God at
Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance.
He said to Gehazi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. 26 Run out to meet her and ask
her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything
is fine.”
27 But when she came to the man of God at the
mountain, she fell to the ground before him and
caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push
her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her
alone. She is deeply troubled, but the Lord has
not told me what it is.”
28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my
lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get
my hopes up’?”
29 Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready to
travel*; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff
on the child’s face.”
30 But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as
the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won’t
go home unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.
31 Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff
on the child’s face, but nothing happened.
There was no sign of life. He returned to meet
Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”
32 When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed
dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed. 33 He
went in alone and shut the door behind him and
prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he lay down on the
child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s
mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his
hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched
out on him, the child’s body began to grow
warm again! 35 Elisha got up, walked back and
forth across the room once, and then stretched
4:29 Hebrew Bind up your loins.