2 Kings 4:1-21 ▼

1 Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared Yahweh; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”

2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your servant-woman has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

3 Then he said, “Go, ask for vessels for yourself, from those outside, from all your neighbors, even empty vessels; do not get a few.

4 And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.”

5 So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing the vessels to her and she poured.

6 Now it happened that when the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not one vessel more.” And the oil stopped.

7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

8 Now there came a day when Elisha passed over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she prevailed upon him to eat food. Now it happened, as often as he passed by, that he turned in there to eat food.

9 And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually.

10 Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it will be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there.”

11 Now it happened that one day he came there and turned in to the upper chamber, and there he lay down.

12 Then he said to Gehazi his young man, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her, and she stood before him.

13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Behold, you have been careful for us with all this care; what can I do for you? Would you be spoken for to the king or to the commander of the army?’” And she answered, “I live among my own people.”

14 So he said, “What then is to be done for her?” And Gehazi answered, “Truly she has no son, and her husband is old.”

15 And he said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway.

16 Then he said, “At this season next year you will embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God, do not lie to your servant-woman.”

17 Then the woman conceived and bore a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had said to her.

18 Then the child was grown. And the day came that he went out to his father to the reapers.

19 And he said to his father, “My head, my head.” And he said to his young man, “Carry him to his mother.”

20 Then he carried him and brought him to his mother, and he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.

21 Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out.