But the Lord's angelic messenger told Elijah the Tishbite, "Get up, go to meet the messengers from the king of Samaria. Say this to them: 'You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are on your way to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub the god of Ekron.

Therefore this is what the Lord says, "You will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die!"'" So Elijah went on his way.

They replied, "A man came up to meet us. He told us, "Go back to the king who sent you and tell him, 'This is what the Lord says: "You must think there is no God in Israel! That explains why you are sending for an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die."'"

They replied, "He was a hairy man and had a leather belt tied around his waist." The king said, "He is Elijah the Tishbite."

The king sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, "Prophet, this is what the king says, 'Come down at once!'"

Elijah said to the king, "This is what the Lord says, 'You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. You must think there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek an oracle! Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.'"

He died just as the Lord had prophesied through Elijah. In the second year of the reign of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat over Judah, Ahaziah's brother Jehoram replaced him as king of Israel, because he had no son.

Elijah told Elisha, "Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel." But Elisha said, "As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel.

Some members of the prophetic guild in Bethel came out to Elisha and said, "Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?" He answered, "Yes, I know. Be quiet."

Elijah said to him, "Elisha, stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho." But he replied, "As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So they went to Jericho.

Some members of the prophetic guild in Jericho approached Elisha and said, "Do you know that today the Lord is going to take your master from you?" He answered, "Yes, I know. Be quiet."

Elijah said to him, "Stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan." But he replied, "As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So they traveled on together.

As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses appeared. They went between Elijah and Elisha, and Elijah went up to heaven in a windstorm.

He took the cloak that had fallen off Elijah, hit the water with it, and said, "Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" When he hit the water, it divided and Elisha crossed over.

The men of the city said to Elisha, "Look, the city has a good location, as our master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn't produce crops."

He went out to the spring and threw the salt in. Then he said, "This is what the Lord says, 'I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or fail to produce crops."

The water has been pure to this very day, just as Elisha prophesied.

He went up from there to Bethel. As he was traveling up the road, some young boys came out of the city and made fun of him, saying, "Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!"

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not to the same degree as his father and mother. He did remove the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made.

Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder. He would send as tribute to the king of Israel 100,000 male lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.

Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we might seek the Lord's direction?" One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, "Elisha son of Shapat is here; he used to be Elijah's servant."

Elisha said to the king of Israel, "Why are you here? Go to your father's prophets or your mother's prophets!" The king of Israel replied to him, "No, for the Lord is the one who summoned these three kings so that he can hand them over to Moab."

Elisha said, "As certainly as the Lord who rules over all lives (whom I serve), if I did not respect King Jehoshaphat of Judah, I would not pay attention to you or acknowledge you.

and he said, "This is what the Lord says, 'Make many cisterns in this valley,'

for this is what the Lord says, 'You will not feel any wind or see any rain, but this valley will be full of water and you and your cattle and animals will drink.'

This is an easy task for the Lord; he will also hand Moab over to you.

So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him up as a burnt sacrifice on the wall. There was an outburst of divine anger against Israel, so they broke off the attack and returned to their homeland.

Now a wife of one of the prophets appealed to Elisha for help, saying, "Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord. Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants."

He said, "Go and ask all your neighbors for empty containers. Get as many as you can.

So she left him and closed the door behind her and her sons. As they were bringing the containers to her, she was pouring the olive oil.

She said to her husband, "Look, I'm sure that the man who regularly passes through here is a very special prophet.

Let's make a small private upper room and furnish it with a bed, table, chair, and lamp. When he visits us, he can stay there."

Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tell her, 'Look, you have treated us with such great respect. What can I do for you? Can I put in a good word for you with the king or the commander of the army?'" She replied, "I'm quite secure."

So he asked Gehazi, "What can I do for her?" Gehazi replied, "She has no son, and her husband is old."

The woman did conceive, and at the specified time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

He said, "Why do you want to go see him today? It is not the new moon or the Sabbath." She said, "Everything's fine."

But when she reached the prophet on the mountain, she grabbed hold of his feet. Gehazi came near to push her away, but the prophet said, "Leave her alone, for she is very upset. The Lord has kept the matter hidden from me; he didn't tell me about it."

The mother of the child said, "As certainly as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So Elisha got up and followed her back.

The stew was poured out for the men to eat. When they ate some of the stew, they cried out, "Death is in the pot, O prophet!" They could not eat it.

Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet -- twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain. Elisha said, "Set it before the people so they may eat."

But his attendant said, "How can I feed a hundred men with this?" He replied, "Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord says, 'They will eat and have some left over.'"

So he set it before them; they ate and had some left over, just as the Lord predicted.

She told her mistress, "If only my master were in the presence of the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his skin disease."

He brought the letter to king of Israel. It read: "This is a letter of introduction for my servant Naaman, whom I have sent to be cured of his skin disease."

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God? Can I kill or restore life? Why does he ask me to cure a man of his skin disease? Certainly you must see that he is looking for an excuse to fight me!"

When Elisha the prophet heard that the king had torn his clothes, he sent this message to the king, "Why did you tear your clothes? Send him to me so he may know there is a prophet in Israel."

So he went down and dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the prophet had instructed. His skin became as smooth as a young child's and he was healed.

He and his entire entourage returned to the prophet. Naaman came and stood before him. He said, "For sure I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel! Now, please accept a gift from your servant."

But Elisha replied, "As certainly as the Lord lives (whom I serve), I will take nothing from you." Naaman insisted that he take it, but he refused.

Gehazi, the prophet Elisha's servant, thought, "Look, my master did not accept what this Syrian Naaman offered him. As certainly as the Lord lives, I will run after him and accept something from him."

So Gehazi ran after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and asked, "Is everything all right?"

He answered, "Everything is fine. My master sent me with this message, 'Look, two servants of the prophets just arrived from the Ephraimite hill country. Please give them a talent of silver and two suits of clothes.'"

Elisha replied, "I was there in spirit when a man turned and got down from his chariot to meet you. This is not the proper time to accept silver or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, sheep, cattle, and male and female servants.

Therefore Naaman's skin disease will afflict you and your descendants forever!" When Gehazi went out from his presence, his skin was as white as snow.

Some of the prophets said to Elisha, "Look, the place where we meet with you is too cramped for us.

Let's go to the Jordan. Each of us will get a log from there and we will build a meeting place for ourselves there." He said, "Go."

As one of them was felling a log, the ax head dropped into the water. He shouted, "Oh no, my master! It was borrowed!"

But the prophet sent this message to the king of Israel, "Make sure you don't pass through this place because Syria is invading there."

This made the king of Syria upset. So he summoned his advisers and said to them, "One of us must be helping the king of Israel."

The king ordered, "Go, find out where he is, so I can send some men to capture him." The king was told, "He is in Dothan."

As they approached him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, "Strike these people with blindness." The Lord struck them with blindness as Elisha requested.

Then Elisha said to them, "This is not the right road or city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you're looking for." He led them to Samaria.

While the king of Israel was passing by on the city wall, a woman shouted to him, "Help us, my master, O king!"

When the king heard what the woman said, he tore his clothes. As he was passing by on the wall, the people could see he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes.

He was still talking to them when the messenger approached and said, "Look, the Lord is responsible for this disaster! Why should I continue to wait for the Lord to help?"

Elisha replied, "Hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says, 'About this time tomorrow a seah of finely milled flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.'"

If we go into the city, we'll die of starvation, and if we stay here we'll die! So come on, let's defect to the Syrian camp! If they spare us, we'll live; if they kill us -- well, we were going to die anyway."

The Lord had caused the Syrian camp to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a large army. Then they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has paid the kings of the Hittites and Egypt to attack us!"

So they got up and fled at dusk, leaving behind their tents, horses, and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.

Then they said to one another, "It's not right what we're doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven't told anyone. If we wait until dawn, we'll be punished. So come on, let's go and inform the royal palace."

The king got up in the night and said to his advisers, "I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know we are starving, so they left the camp and hid in the field, thinking, 'When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and enter the city.'"

So they tracked them as far as the Jordan. The road was filled with clothes and equipment that the Syrians had discarded in their haste. The scouts went back and told the king.

Then the people went out and looted the Syrian camp. A seah of finely milled flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, just as the Lord had said they would.

This is exactly what happened to him. The people trampled him to death in the city gate.

Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, "You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years."

So the woman did as the prophet said. She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

While Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had brought the dead back to life, the woman whose son he had brought back to life came to ask the king for her house and field. Gehazi said, "My master, O king, this is the very woman and this is her son whom Elisha brought back to life!"

The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, "Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now."

So Hazael went to visit Elisha. He took along a gift, as well as forty camel loads of all the fine things of Damascus. When he arrived, he stood before him and said, "Your son, King Ben Hadad of Syria, has sent me to you with this question, 'Will I recover from this sickness?'"

Hazael said, "How could your servant, who is as insignificant as a dog, accomplish this great military victory?" Elisha answered, "The Lord has revealed to me that you will be the king of Syria."

The next day Hazael took a piece of cloth, dipped it in water, and spread it over Ben Hadad's face until he died. Then Hazael replaced him as king.

He followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel, just as Ahab's dynasty had done, for he married Ahab's daughter. He did evil in the sight of the Lord.

Joram passed away and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David. His son Ahaziah replaced him as king.

Take the container of olive oil, pour it over his head, and say, 'This is what the Lord says, "I have designated you as king over Israel."' Then open the door and run away quickly!"

When he arrived, the officers of the army were sitting there. So he said, "I have a message for you, O officer." Jehu asked, "For which one of us?" He replied, "For you, O officer."

So Jehu got up and went inside. Then the prophet poured the olive oil on his head and said to him, "This is what the Lord God of Israel says, 'I have designated you as king over the Lord's people Israel.

When Jehu rejoined his master's servants, they asked him, "Is everything all right? Why did this madman visit you?" He replied, "Ah, it's not important. You know what kind of man he is and the kinds of things he says."

But they said, "You're lying! Tell us what he said." So he told them what he had said. He also related how he had said, "This is what the Lord says, 'I have designated you as king over Israel.'"

Each of them quickly took off his cloak and they spread them out at Jehu's feet on the steps. The trumpet was blown and they shouted, "Jehu is king!"

Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel and saw Jehu's troops approaching. He said, "I see troops!" Jehoram ordered, "Send a rider out to meet them and have him ask, 'Is everything all right?'"

So the horseman went to meet him and said, "This is what the king says, 'Is everything all right?'" Jehu replied, "None of your business! Follow me." The watchman reported, "The messenger reached them, but hasn't started back."

So he sent a second horseman out to them and he said, "This is what the king says, 'Is everything all right?'" Jehu replied, "None of your business! Follow me."

When Jehoram saw Jehu, he asked, "Is everything all right, Jehu?" He replied, "How can everything be all right as long as your mother Jezebel promotes idolatry and pagan practices?"

"Know for sure that I saw the shed blood of Naboth and his sons yesterday," says the Lord, "and that I will give you what you deserve right here in this plot of land," says the Lord.' So now pick him up and throw him into this plot of land, just as the Lord said."

When Jehu came through the gate, she said, "Is everything all right, Zimri, murderer of his master?"

He looked up at the window and said, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked down at him.

Ahab had seventy sons living in Samaria. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the leading officials of Jezreel and to the guardians of Ahab's dynasty. This is what the letters said,

When he left there, he met Jehonadab, son of Rekab, who had been looking for him. Jehu greeted him and asked, "Are you as committed to me as I am to you?" Jehonadab answered, "I am!" Jehu replied, "If so, give me your hand." So he offered his hand and Jehu pulled him up into the chariot.

He went to Samaria and exterminated all the members of Ahab's family who were still alive in Samaria, just as the Lord had announced to Elijah.

So now, bring to me all the prophets of Baal, as well as all his servants and priests. None of them must be absent, for I am offering a great sacrifice to Baal. Any of them who fail to appear will lose their lives." But Jehu was tricking them so he could destroy the servants of Baal.