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certain woman, the wife of one of the sons of the prophets, cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two sons as his slaves.”
2 Elisha asked her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
She answered, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house at all, except a jar of oil.”
3 Then he said, “Go and borrow empty jars from all your neighbours around here, and not just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each of them is filled, put it to one side.”
5 So she left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They kept bringing the empty jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another jar.”
But he replied, “There are no more jars left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 She went 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 One day Elisha went to Shunem. A prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to stay and eat some food. So whenever he passed by, he stopped there to eat. 9 She said to her husband, “I am sure that the man who often passes by here is a holy man of God. 10 So let’s make a small room on the roof and put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp there for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us.”
11 One day when Elisha came there, he went into the upper room and lay down there. 12 He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call in the Shunammite woman.” So he called her in, and she stood before him. 13 Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Say to her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’ ”
She replied, “I live among my own people.”
14 “What then can be done for her?” he asked.
Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.”
15 He said, “Call her here.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16 Elisha said to her, “About this time next year you will have a son in your arms.”
“No, my lord,” she said, “O man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.”
17 But the woman conceived and gave birth to a son about the same time the following year, just as Elisha had told her.
18 The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was among the reapers. 19 Suddenly he complained to his father, “My head, my head!”
His father told his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20 So he picked the child up and carried him to his mother. The child sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. 21 She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then went out and shut the door.
22 Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so I can hurry to the man of God and come back.”
23 But he said, “Why go to him today? It is not the New Moon or the Sabbath.”
She answered, “It will be all right.”
aa 24 Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Urge the animal on; don’t slacken the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25 So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.
When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there’s the Shunammite woman. 26 Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?’ ”
“Everything is fine,” she replied.
27 But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress; and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
28 Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me’?”
29 Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your mantle under your belt, take my staff in your hand, and be on your way. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
30 But the boy’s mother said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
31 Gehazi went ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or sign of life. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
32 When Elisha got to the house, there was the boy, lying dead on his bed. 33 So he went in, shut the door on the two of them, and prayed to the Lord. 34 Then he went up and lay on the boy, and he put mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over the boy, the boy’s flesh became warm. 35 Elisha got up and walked back and forth in the room, and then went and stretched himself out over the boy again. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call in the Shunammite woman.” So he called out to her. When she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” 37 She came in and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground. Then she picked her son and went out.
38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. While the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot, and cook some stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39 So one of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He picked wild gourds from it, as many as he could hold in the fold of his garment. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. 40 The stew was served out for the men to eat, but while they were eating it, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.
41 Then Elisha said, “Then bring some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people and let them eat.” And there was no longer anything harmful in the pot.
42 A man came from Baal-shalisha and he brought the man of God some food from the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley bread, and some fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people to eat.”
43 But his servant asked, “What? How can I set this down before a hundred men?”
“Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said again, “for this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over’.” 44 So he set it before them, and when they had eaten, they had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.