The Divided Kingdom

When the king of Mo'av saw that the fighting was too much for him, he took with him 700 men armed with swords and tried to break through to the king of Edom; but they couldn't do it.

Then he took his firstborn son, who was to have succeeded him as king, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. Following this, such great anger came upon Isra'el that they left him and went back to their own land.

The wife of one of the guild prophets complained to Elisha. "Your servant my husband died," she said, "and you know that he feared ADONAI. Now a creditor has come to take my two children as his slaves."

Elisha asked her, "What should I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" She answered, "Your servant has nothing in the house but a flask of oil."

Then he said, "Go, and borrow containers from all your neighbors, empty containers; and don't borrow just a few!

Then go in; shut the door, with you and your sons inside; and pour oil into all those containers; and as they are filled, put them aside."

So she left him and shut the door on herself and her sons. They brought her the containers while she poured.

When the containers were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another container"; but he answered, "There isn't another container." Then the oil stopped flowing.

She came and told the man of God; and he said, "Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt; then you and your sons can live on what's left."

One day Elisha visited Shunem, and a well-to-do woman living there pressed him to stay and eat a meal. After this, whenever he came through, he stopped there for a meal.

She said to her husband, "I can see that this is a holy man of God who keeps stopping at our place.

Please, let's build him a little room on the roof. We'll put a bed and a table in it for him, and a stool and a candlestick. Then, whenever he comes to visit us, he can stay there."

One day Elisha came to visit there, and he went into the upper room to lie down.

He said to Geichazi his servant, "Call this Shunamit." He called her; and when she arrived,

he said to him, "Tell her this: 'You have shown us so much hospitality! What can I do to show my appreciation? Do you want me to say anything to the king for you? or to the commander of the army?" She answered, "I'm happy living as I do, among my own people."

He said, "What, then, is to be done for her?" Geichazi answered, "There's one thing - she doesn't have a son; and her husband is old.

Elisha said, "Call her." After he called her, she stood in the doorway.

He said, "Next year, when the season comes around, you will be holding a son." "No, my lord," she answered. "Man of God, don't lie to your servant!"

But the woman conceived and gave birth to a son the following year when the season came around, just as Elisha had said to her.

When the child was old enough, he went out one day to be with his father, who was with the reapers.

Suddenly he cried out to his father, "My head! My head hurts!" He said to his servant, "Carry him back to his mother."

When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he lay on her lap until noon; and then he died.

She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door on him and went out.

She called to her husband and said, "Please send me one of the servants with a donkey. I must get to the man of God as fast as I can; I'll come straight back."

He asked, "Why are you going to him today? It isn't Rosh-Hodesh and it isn't Shabbat." She said, "It's all right."