Then they asked Elisha, "Look! We have 50 valiant men here with your servant! Please let them go out and search for your master Elijah. Perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has taken him up on a mountain or into a valley." Elisha responded, "Don't bother searching."

As he was going out, he sent this message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight Moab?"

Then the king of Israel remarked, "Oh no! The LORD has summoned us three kings so he can hand us over to Moab, hasn't he?"

Elisha asked the king of Israel, "What do I have in common with you? Go visit your parents' prophets." The king of Israel replied, "No! The LORD has summoned these three kings so he can hand them over to Moab!"

Now there happened to be a certain woman who had been the wife of a member of the Guild of Prophets. She cried out to Elisha, "My husband who served you has died, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. But a creditor has come to take away my children into indentured servitude!"

Elisha responded, "What shall I do for you? Tell me what you have in your house." She replied, "Your servant has nothing in the entire house except for a flask of oil."

He responded, "What, then, is to be done on her behalf?" Gehazi answered, "Well, she has no son and her husband is growing old."

As she came near the man of God on the mountain, she grabbed his feet. When Gehazi intervened to push her away, the man of God said, "Leave her alone! She is deeply troubled! The LORD has concealed the thing from me, and hasn't informed me."

Meanwhile, Gehazi went on ahead of them and placed the staff on the youngster's face, but when there was no sound or reaction, he returned, met Elisha, and told him, "The youngster has shown no sign of awakening."

After Naaman had gone only a short distance, Gehazi, the attendant to Elisha, the man of God, told himself, "Look how my master has spared this Aramean, Naaman! He declined to take from him what he brought. As the LORD lives, I'm going to run after him and get something from him."

The king of Aram flew into a rage over this, so he called in his advisors and asked them, "Will you please tell me which of us has joined the king of Israel?"

She said, "This woman told me, "Give up your son, and we'll eat him today, and we'll eat your son tomorrow.'" So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day, I told her, "Give me your son so we can eat him!' But she has hidden her son!"

Meanwhile, Elisha was sitting in his house, along with the elders, when the king sent a man to kill him, but before the messenger arrived, Elisha told the elders, "Are you watching how this descendant of murderers has ordered my head be cut off? Look, when the messenger arrives, shut the door and hold it to shut them out! Don't you hear the sound of his master's feet right behind him?"

While he was still talking with them, the messenger arrived to see him and delivered the king's message to Elisha, "Look! This evil has come from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD anymore?"

The LORD had made the Aramean army hear the sounds of chariots, horses, and a large army, so they told one another, "Look! The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the Egyptians to come attack us!"

One of his attendants suggested, "Please, let's take five of the remaining horses, since those who remain here will end up like the rest of Israel, which has already died, and we'll send them out to look."

Meanwhile, Elisha urged the woman whose son he had restored to life, "You must get up and leave with your household to go live wherever you can, because the LORD has called for a famine, and it's going to come over the land for seven years."

The king was talking with Gehazi, the attendant of the man of God. He had asked Gehazi, "Please tell me about all of the great things that Elisha has done."

Later on, Elisha traveled to Damascus. King Ben-hadad of Aram was ill, but someone informed him, "The man of God has come here!"

So Hazael went out to meet with him and took a gift with him 40 camel loads filled with samples of everything good in Damascus. He approached the man of God and said, "Your son King Ben-hadad from Aram has sent me to you to ask you, "Will I recover from this sickness?'"

But Elisha told him, "Go tell him, "You will certainly recover,' but the LORD has shown me that he will certainly die."

But Hazael responded, "What? Who am I, your servant, that I should do such a horrible thing?" But Elisha answered, "The LORD has shown me that you will be king over Aram."

You are to attack the household of your master Ahab, so I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, as well as the blood of all of the servants of the LORD that has been spilled at Jezebel's orders.

So a horseman went out, greeted Jehu and said, "This is what the king said: "Have you come in peace?'" But Jehu responded, "What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me." The watchman reported, "The messenger arrived there, but he hasn't returned."

The watchman reported to Joram, "He arrived there, but he hasn't returned. Also, he drives like Nimshi's son Jehu drives irrationally!"

Keep this in mind not a single statement by the LORD will fail to come about that he spoke concerning Ahab's dynasty, because the LORD has accomplished what he predicted by his servant Elijah."

As a result, they reported to the king of Assyria, "Because the nations whom you exiled to live in the cities of Samaria don't know the law of the god of the land, he has sent lions among them. Look how the lions are killing them, because they don't know the law of the god of the land!"

""Of course, you might tell me, "We rely on the LORD our God!" But isn't it he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has demolished, all the while telling Jerusalem, "You're to worship in front of this altar in Jerusalem?"'

But Rab-shakeh spoke to them, "Has my master sent me to talk about this just to your master and to you, and not also to the men who are sitting on the wall, who will soon be eating their own feces and drinking their own urine along with you?"

Then Rab-shakeh stood up and cried out loud, "Listen to what the great king, the king of Assyria has to say.

"But don't listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, "The LORD will deliver us!" Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from control by the king of Assyria?

Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered their land from my control, so that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from me?'"

"This is what Hezekiah says: "Today is a day of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy, because children are about to be born, but there is no strength to bring them to birth. Perhaps the LORD your God will take note of everything that Rab-shakeh has said, whom his master the king of Assyria sent to taunt the living God, and then he will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore offer a prayer for the survivors who remain.'"

When he heard that it was being said about King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, "Look! He has come out to attack you!" he again sent messengers to Hezekiah.

"This is what the LORD has spoken against him: "She despises and mocks you, this virgin daughter of Zion! Behind your back she shakes her head, this daughter of Jerusalem!

Because of your rage against me, your complacency has reached my ears. I'll put my hook into your nostrils and my bit into your mouth. Then I'll turn you back on the road by which you came.'

So Isaiah replied, "This will be your sign from the LORD that the LORD will do what he has promised. Shall the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?"

"Because King Manasseh of Judah has committed these despicable things, acting more sinfully than did all of the Amorites who preceded him, including making Judah sin with its idols,

"Go to the high priest Hilkiah, so he can count the money that has been brought into the LORD's Temple by the doorkeepers who have been gathering it from the people.

Then Shaphan the scribe informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." Then Shaphan read from it in the king's presence.

"Go ask the LORD for me, for the people, and for all of Judah about what's written in this book that has been discovered, because the LORD's anger is burning against us, since our ancestors have not listened to the words written in this book and have not lived according to everything that is written concerning us."

"This is what the Lord says: "Look! I'm bringing disaster on this place and on its inhabitants everything written in the book that the king of Judah has read