5She went away and shut the door behind her and her children. They kept bringing [vessels] to her and she kept pouring. 6When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” He answered her, “There are no more vessels”; and the oil stopped. 7She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your children can live on the rest.”
8One day Elisha visited Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to have a meal; and whenever he passed by, he would stop there for a meal. 9Once she said to her husband, “I am sure it is a holy man of God who comes this way regularly. 10Let us make a small a-enclosed upper chamber-a and place a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp-stand there for him, so that he can stop there whenever he comes to us.” 11One day he came there; he retired to the upper chamber and lay down there. 12He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call that Shunammite woman.” He called her, and she stood before him. 13He said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak in your behalf to the king or to the army commander?’ ” She replied, “I live among my own people.” 14“What then can be done for her?” he asked. “The fact is,” said Gehazi, “she has no son, and her hus-band is old.” 15“Call her,” he said. He called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16And Elisha said, “At this season next year, you will be em-bracing a son.” She replied, “Please, my lord, man of God, do not delude your maidservant.”
17The woman conceived and bore a son at the same season the follow-ing year, as Elisha had assured her. 18The child grew up. One day, he went out to his father among the reapers. 19[Suddenly] he cried to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” He said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” 20He picked him up and brought him to his mother. And the child sat on her lap until noon; and he died. 21She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and left him and closed the door. 22Then she called to her husband: “Please, send me one of the servants and one of the she-asses, so I can hurry to the man of God and back.” 23But he said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” She answered, b-“It’s all right.”-b
24She had the ass saddled, and said to her servant, “Urge [the beast] on;c see that I don’t slow down unless I tell you.” 25She went on until she came to the man of God on Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her from afar, he said to his servant Gehazi, “There is that Shunam-mite woman. 26Go, hurry toward her and ask her, ‘How are you? How is your husband? How is the child?’ ” “We are well,” she replied. 27But when she came up to the man of God on the mountain, she clasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away; but the man of God said, “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress; and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.” 28Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say: ‘Don’t mislead me’?”
29He said to Gehazi, d-“Tie up your skirts,-d take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. And place my staff on the face of the boy.” 30But the boy’s mother said, “As the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you!” So he arose and followed her.
31Gehazi had gone on before them and had placed the staff on the boy’s face; but there was no sound or response. He turned back to meet him and told him, “The boy has not awakened.” 32Elisha came into the house, and there was the boy, laid out dead on his couch. 33He went in, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. 34Then he mounted [the bed] and placed himself over the child. He put his mouth on its mouth, his eyes on its eyes, and his hands on its hands, as he bent over it. And the body of the child became warm. 35He stepped down, walked once up and down the room, then mounted and bent over him. Thereupon, the boy sneezed seven times, and the boy opened his eyes. 36[Elisha] called Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman,” and he called her. When she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” 37She came and fell at his feet and bowed low to the ground; then she picked up her son and left.
38Elisha returned to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land, and the disciples of the prophets were sitting before him. He said to his servant, “Set the large pot [on the fire] and cook a stew for the disciples of the prophets.” 39So one of them went out into the fields to gather sprouts. He came across a wild vine and picked from it wild gourds, as many as his garment would hold. Then he came back and sliced them into the pot of stew, for they did not know [what they were]; 40and they served it for the men to eat. While they were still eating of the stew, they began to cry out: “O man of God, there is death in the pot!”e And they could not eat it. 41“Fetch some flour,” [Elisha] said. 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.
42A man came from Baal-shalishah and he brought the man of God some bread of the first reaping—twenty loaves of barley bread, and some fresh grain f-in his sack.-f And [Elisha] said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” 43His attendant replied, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” But he said, “Give it to the people and let them eat. For thus said the LORD: They shall eat and have some left over.” 44So he set it before them; and when they had eaten, they had some left over, as the LORD had said.
5 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was important to his lord and high in his favor, for through him the LORD had granted victory to Aram. But the man, though a great warrior, was a leper.a 2Once, when the Arameans were out raiding, they carried off a young girl from the land of Israel, and she became an attendant to Naaman’s wife. 3She said to her mistress, “I wish Master could come before the prophet in Samaria; he would cure him of his leprosy.” 4[Naaman] went and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5And the king of Aram said, “Go to the king of Israel, and I will send along a letter.”
He set out, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. 6He brought the letter to the king of Israel. It read: “Now, when this letter reaches you, know that I have sent my courtier Naaman to you, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 7When the king of Israel read the letter, he rent his clothes and cried, “Am I God, to deal death or give life, that this fellow writes to me to cure a man of leprosy? Just see for yourselves that he is seeking a pretext against me!”
8When Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you rent your clothes? Let him come to me, and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and halted at the door of Elisha’s house. 10Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go and bathe seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 11But Naaman was angered and walked away. “I thought,” he said, “he would surely come out to me, and would stand and invoke the LORD his God by name, and would wave his hand toward the spot, and cure the affected part. 12Are not the Amanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? I could bathe in them and be clean!” And he stalked off in a rage.
13But his servants came forward and spoke to him. “Sir,”b they said, “if the prophet told you to do something difficult, would you not do it? How much more when he has only said to you, ‘Bathe and be clean.”’ 14So he went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had bidden; and his flesh became like a little boy’s, and he was
