1The wife of one of the sons of the prophets appealed to Elisha, “My husband, your servant, is dead, and you know that he honored the Lord. But now to pay his debts his creditor is coming to take my two sons as his slaves!”

2“What can I do to help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “I, your servant, don't have anything in my house except a jar of olive oil,” she replied.

3“Go and borrow empty jars from your neighbors—as many as possible, not just a few,” Elisha told her.

4“Then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, and start pouring olive oil into all these jars, placing the full jars to one side.”

5She left Elisha, went home, and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept on pouring.

6When all the jars were full, she told her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There aren't any jars left.” Then the olive oil stopped flowing.

7She went and told the man of God what had happened, and he said, “Go and sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what's left.”

8One day as Elisha was passing through Shunem, a wealthy woman who lived there convinced him to have a meal. After that, whenever he was passing by he would stop there to eat.

9She told her husband, “I'm sure that this man who regularly visits us is a holy man of God.

10Please let's make a small room on the roof,. We can put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp in it for him. Then he can stay there whenever he visits us.”

11One day Elisha arrived and went up to his room and lay down.

12He said to his servant Gehazi, “Ask the Shunammite woman ⁸to come here.” Gehazi called her and she came to see Elisha.

13Elisha said to Gehazi, “Please tell her, ‘You have gone to a lot of trouble on our behalf. Now what can we do for you? Do you want us to speak for you to the king or the army commander?’” “I live with my own people,” ⁹she replied.

14After she had left, ¹⁰Elisha asked, “What can we do for her?” “She doesn't have a son, and her husband is old,” Gehazi replied.

15Elisha said, “Ask her to come back.” So Gehazi called her, and she came and stood by the door.

16Elisha told her, “Around this time next year, you will be holding a son in your arms.” “No, my lord!” she responded. “Man of God, don't tell your servant lies!”

17But the woman did indeed become pregnant, and the next year around that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had promised her.

18The child grew up, but one day when he went out to see his father who was with the reapers,

19he complained to his father, “My head hurts! My head hurts!” His father told one of his servants, “Carry him back to his mother.”

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

21She went upstairs and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door behind her and left.

22She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can run to the man of God and come back.”

23“Why do you need to go and see him today?” he asked. “It's not the New Moon or the Sabbath.” “Don't worry about it,” she replied.

24She put the saddle on the donkey and told her servant, “Let's go quickly! Don't slow down for me unless I tell you to!”

25So she set off, and went to the man of God who was at Mount Carmel. When he saw her way in the distance, the man of God told his servant Gehazi, “Look! There's the Shunammite woman!

26Please run to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything fine with you, your husband, and your boy?’” “Everything's fine,” she replied.

27But when she got to the man of God at the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for she's in terrible misery, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not explained it to me.”

28“Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she asked. “Didn't I tell you, ‘Don't tell me lies’?”

29Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your cloak in your belt, pick up my staff, and go! Don't even say hello to anyone you meet, and if anyone says hello to you, don't reply. Place my staff on the boy's face.”

30But the boy's mother said, “As the Lord lives and as you live, I'm not leaving without you!” So he got up and went with her.

31Gehazi ran on ahead and placed 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 hasn't woken up.”

32When Elisha got to the house, there was the boy, lying dead on his bed.

33He went in, shut the door behind them both, and prayed to the Lord.

34Then he got on the bed and lay on top of the boy, and put his mouth on the boy's mouth, his eyes on the boy's eyes, his hands on the boy's hands. As he stretched out on him, the boy's body warmed up.

35Elisha got up, walked back and forth once in the room, and then got back on the bed and stretched out on him again. The boy sneezed seven times and then opened his eyes.

36Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Ask the Shunammite woman to come.” So he did. When she arrived, Elisha said to her, “Here's your son. You can pick him up.”

37She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and left.

38When Elisha went back to Gilgal, there was a famine in that area. The sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, and he said to his servant, “Use the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”

39One of them went out into the countryside to pick herbs. He found a wild vine and picked as many wild gourds as his cloak could hold. Then he came back and chopped them up into the pot of stew. But nobody knew they were dangerous to eat. ¹¹

40They served it to the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they shouted, “There's death in the pot, man of God!” They couldn't eat it.

41Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot, and said, “Serve it to the people to eat.” There was nothing bad to eat in the pot.

42A man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of firstfruits—the first grain of the year, along with twenty loaves of barley bread. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.

43“How can I serve just twenty loaves to a hundred men?” his servant asked. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha, “for this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and there will still be some left over.’”

44So he served the bread to them. They ate, and had some left over, just as the Lord had said.