2 Kings 4:1-20 ▼

1 One of the wives of a disciple of the prophets called to Elisha, |Sir, my husband is dead! You know how he feared the LORD. Now a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.|

2 Elisha asked her, |What should I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?| She answered, |I have nothing in the house except a jar of olive oil.|

3 Elisha said, |Borrow many empty containers from all your neighbors.

4 Then close the door behind you and your children, and pour oil into all those containers. When one is full, set it aside.|

5 So she left him and closed the door behind her and her children. The children kept bringing containers to her, and she kept pouring.

6 When the containers were full, she told her son, |Bring me another container.| He told her, |There are no more containers.| So the olive oil stopped flowing.

7 She went and told the man of God. He said, |Sell the oil, and pay your debt. The rest is for you and your children.|

8 One day Elisha was traveling through Shunem, where a rich woman lived. She had invited him to eat [with her]. So whenever he was in the area, he stopped in to eat.

9 She told her husband, |I know he's a holy man of God. And he regularly travels past our house.

10 Let's make a small room on the roof and put a bed, table, chair, and lamp stand there for him. He can stay there whenever he comes to visit us.|

11 One day he came [to their house], went into the upstairs room, and rested there.

12 He told his servant Gehazi, |Call this Shunem woman.| Gehazi called her, and she stood in front of him.

13 Elisha said to Gehazi, |Ask her what we can do for her, since she has gone to a lot of trouble for us. Maybe she would like us to speak to the king or the commander of the army for her.| She answered, |I'm already living among my own people.|

14 |What should we do for her?| Elisha asked. Gehazi answered, |Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.|

15 Elisha said, |Call her.| So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway.

16 Elisha said, |At this time next spring, you will hold a baby boy in your arms.| She answered, |Don't say that, sir. Don't lie to me. You're a man of God.|

17 But the woman became pregnant and had a son at that time next year, as Elisha had told her.

18 Several years later the boy went to his father, who was with the harvest workers.

19 [Suddenly,] he said to his father, |My head! My head!| The father told his servant, |Carry him to his mother.|

20 The servant picked him up and brought him to his mother. The boy sat on her lap until noon, when he died.