They replied, "We met a man who told us, "Go back to the king who sent you and ask him, "Is it because there is no God in Israel that you're going to consult with Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you won't be getting up from that bed on which you're lying. You will most certainly die!"'"

He told them, "Describe the man who met you and told you these things."

They answered, "The man was a hairy fellow. He wore a leather sash around his waist." The king responded, "It's Elijah, that foreigner!"

So the king sent out 50 men, along with their leader. The leader approached Elijah, who was sitting at the top of a hill. He ordered Elijah, "Hey, man of God! The king orders you to come down!"

Elijah responded to the leader who was in charge of the 50 soldiers, "So I'm a man of God, am I? If so, may fire fall from heaven and devour you and your 50 soldiers"" Just then, fire fell from heaven and devoured that leader and his 50 soldiers.

Later the king tried again he sent another company of 50 soldiers, along with their leader, who ordered Elijah, "Hey, man of God! This is what the king orders: "Come down!'"

Elijah responded to the leader and to his entire company, "So I'm a man of God, am I? If so, may fire fall from heaven and devour you and your 50 soldiers"" Just then, fire fell from heaven and devoured him and his 50 soldiers.

Then the king tried yet again! The king sent a third company of 50 soldiers along with their leader. The third leader went up the hill, approached Elijah, fell on his knees in front of him, and begged him, "Hey, man of God, please treat my life and the lives of these servants of yours as precious!

The angel of the LORD told Elijah, "Go down the hill with that man. Don't be afraid of him!" So Elijah got up and went down with him to meet the king.

But Elisha responded, "As the LORD lives, and while you're still alive, I'm not going to leave you!" So they went on their way, accompanied by 50 men from the Guild of Prophets, who stood at a short distance from them while they were both standing by the Jordan.

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."

But they persisted until he was frustrated, so he said, "Send them out!" So they sent out the 50 men, and they looked around for three days but did not find Elijah.

The men who lived in the city addressed Elisha. "Look now," they said, "our city's location is good, as you have been observing, but the water springs here are bad and the land isn't sustaining crops."

Later, Elisha left there to go up to Bethel, and as he was traveling along the road, some insignificant young men came from the city and started mocking him. They told him, "Get on up, baldy! Get on up, baldy!"

He looked behind him, took note of the young men, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. Suddenly two female bears emerged from the woods and mauled 42 of the young men.

So they concluded, "This must be blood! The kings must have had one mighty big fight and each man killed the other! So let's go get the battle spoil, Moab!"

But he replied, "There isn't even one pot left." Then the oil stopped flowing. After this, she went and told the man of God what had happened. So he said, "Go sell the oil, pay your debt, and you and your children will be able to live on the proceeds."

So she had a talk with her husband. "Look here! I've learned that this is a holy and godly man who comes by here on a regular basis.

"No, sir! Please, as a godly man, don't mislead your servant!" But the woman did conceive and did bear a son at that very same time the next year, just as Elisha had told her.

The woman went upstairs, laid him on the bed belonging to the man of God, and shut the door, leaving him behind as she left.

Then she called to her husband and asked him, "Please send me one of the servants, along with one of the donkeys, so I can ride quickly to see that godly man. I'll be right back."

He asked her, "What's the point of visiting him today? It's not a New Moon, and it isn't the Sabbath!" But she kept saying, "Things will go well."

So out she went and eventually she arrived at Mount Carmel to visit the man of God.

When the man of God noticed her from a distance, he told his attendant Gehazi, "Look! There's the woman from Shunem! Please run out quickly and greet her. Ask her, "Are things going well with you? Are things going well with your husband? Are things going well with your child?'" She answered Gehazi, "Things are going well."

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."

Then he went downstairs, walked around back and forth inside the house once, went back up to his upper chamber, and stretched himself over the child again. The young man sneezed seven times and then opened his eyes.

When they served the men, they began to eat the stew. But they cried out, "That pot of stew is deadly, you man of God!" So they couldn't eat the stew.

Later on, a man arrived from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God some bread as a first fruit offering. He had 20 loaves of barley and ripe ears of corn in his sack. So Elisha said, "Give them to the people so they can eat."

Elisha's attendant asked, "What? Will this serve 100 men?"

Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the opinion of his master. He was highly favored, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. Though he was a mighty and valiant man, he was suffering from leprosy.

When the king of Israel read the letter, he ripped his clothes and cried out, "Am I God? Can I kill and give life? Is this man sending me a request to heal a man's leprosy? Let's think about this he's looking for a reason to start a fight with me!"

When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king and asked, "Why did you tear your clothes? Please, let the man come visit me and he will learn that there is a prophet in Israel!"

So he went down and plunged himself into the Jordan River seven times, just as the man of God had said, and his flesh rejuvenated like the flesh of a newborn child. And he was clean.

Naaman went back to the man of God, along with his entire entourage, and stood before him. "Please look!" he said. "I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel! So please, take a present from your servant."

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."

Gehazi said, "Everything's all right. My master sent me to tell you, "Just now two men from the Guild of Prophets have arrived from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them each a talent of silver bullion and two sets of clothes.'"

But Naaman said, "Please accept my invitation to take two talents of silver." He urged him, binding two talents of silver in two bags, along with two sets of clothes. He placed them in the care of two of his young men, and they went on ahead of Gehazi.

When he arrived at the stronghold, Gehazi took the bags from their custody and hid them away in the house. Then he sent the men away and they left.

But Elisha responded, "Didn't my heart break as the man was turning from his chariot to greet you? Is now the time to receive money? To receive clothes? And olive groves, vineyards, sheep, oxen, servants, or female attendants?

The man of God asked, "Where did it fall?" When he was shown the place, he cut off a branch, tossed it there, and made the iron axe head float.

Then Elisha said, "Pick it up!" So the young man reached out and picked it up.

So the man of God sent a message to the king of Israel, warning him, "Keep an eye on that area, because the Arameans are going to be there!"

The king of Israel confirmed the matter about which the man of God had warned him. Having been forewarned, he was able to protect himself there on more than one or two occasions.

So the king ordered, "Go and discover where he is, so I may send men to take him into custody." Later somebody told him, "Look! He's in Dothan!"

Meanwhile, the attendant to the man of God got up early in the morning and went outside, and there were the elite forces, surrounding the city, accompanied by horses and chariots! So Elisha's attendant cried out to him, "Oh no! Master! What will we do!?"

Then Elisha prayed, asking the LORD, "Please make him able to really see!" And so when the LORD enabled the young man to see, he looked, and there was the mountain, filled with horses and fiery chariots surrounding Elisha!

Then Elisha told the army, "This isn't the way, and this isn't the city! Follow me, and I'll bring you to the man you're seeking." Then he led them to Samaria.

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?"

But the royal attendant on whom the king depended responded to the man of God: "Look here! Even if the LORD were to open a window in the sky, how could this happen?" He replied, "No, you look! You'll see it with your eyes, but you won't eat any of it!"

So they left, called out to the city gatekeepers, and reported to them: "We went out to the Aramean encampment, and there was nobody there! Not even the sound of men only horses and donkeys tied up, and tents left just as they were!"

Meanwhile, the king appointed the same royal attendant on whom he depended to take control of the city gate, but the people trampled him to death in the gate, just as the man of God had told the king when the king came down to him.

It happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king: "At about this time tomorrow, in Samaria's city gate, a seah of finely ground flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel."

But the royal attendant on whom the king depended responded to the man of God: "Look here! Even if the LORD were to make a window in the sky, how could this happen?" He replied, "No, you look! You'll see it with your eyes, but you won't eat any of it!"

So the woman followed the instructions given to her by the man of God, and she went to the territory of the Philistines to live for seven years with her household.

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 the king told Hazael, "Take a gift with you and go meet the man of God. Inquire of the LORD through him and ask, "Will I recover from this sickness?'"

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?'"

Then Elisha looked steadily at Hazael until Hazael grew ashamed, and then the man of God began to cry.

"Why are you crying, sir?" Hazael asked. "Because I know the evil that you're about to bring on the Israelis," he replied. "You'll burn down their fortified cities, execute their young men with swords, dash to pieces their little ones, and you'll tear open their pregnant women!"

So the young man, who was an attendant to the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead.

So Jehu got up and went inside the house, and the young man told him, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: "I have anointed you king over the people of the LORD that is, over Israel.

As Jehu was coming out to his master's attendants, one of them asked him, "Is everything all right? Why did this maniac visit you?" "You know the man and how he speculates," Jehu replied.

At this, each man quickly grabbed his own garment, placed it under him at the top of the stairs, sounded a trumpet, and announced, "Jehu is king!"

Now the king's sons, totaling 70 men, were living with the leading men of the city, who were their guardians. When the letter from Jehu arrived, the city leaders arrested the king's sons, slaughtered all 70 of them, put their heads in baskets, and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

So Jehu executed all those who remained from Ahab's dynasty in Jezreel, including all of Ahab's men, his friends, and his priests, until there remained not even one survivor.

And so they proclaimed it. Jehu sent the proclamation throughout Israel, and all the Baal worshipers came. There wasn't a single man left who failed to come. When they entered Baal's temple, it was filled from one end to the other.

Then they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Meanwhile, Jehu had stationed 80 men outside, ordering them, "If any of these men whom I've brought into your control escape, the one who allows it will forfeit his life."

As soon as he had completed the burnt offering, Jehu ordered the guards and the officers, "Go in and execute them. Don't let even one man escape." So they executed them with swords, and the guards and the officers threw the bodies out and proceeded into the inner room of Baal's temple,

So the captains of hundreds did just as Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each one of them assembled his men who were to enter on the Sabbath, along with those who were to leave on the Sabbath, and approached Jehoiada the priest.

Jehoash spoke to the priests about all of the proceeds of the consecrated gifts that were being brought into the LORD's Temple, cash from every man who was traveling through the area, cash obtained by personal assessment, and all the cash that came through voluntary gifts into the LORD's Temple:

So Jehoiada the priest grabbed a chest, bored an opening in its lid, and placed it next to the altar, on the right side as one enters the LORD's Temple. The priests who tended the entryway put all the money that was brought into the LORD's Temple into the chest.

As a result, whenever they noticed that there was a lot of money in the chest, the king's secretary and the high priest went forward, put the money in bags, counted the money that had been given over to the LORD's Temple,

But no provision was included for the LORD's Temple from the money that was brought into the LORD's Temple for silver basins, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels made of gold or silver,

because that money had been allocated to the workmen who were repairing the LORD's Temple.

Furthermore, they required no accounting from the men into whose hand they had paid the money to do the work, because the workers acted in good faith.

The money from the guilt offerings and from the sin offerings was not brought into the LORD's Temple, because it was allocated to the priests.

At this, the man of God became angry at him and told him, "You should have struck five or six times! Then you would have attacked Aram until you would have destroyed it! But as it is now, you'll defeat Aram only three times!"

One day while some Israelis were burying a man, they saw some marauders, so they threw the man into Elisha's grave. But when the man fell against Elisha's remains, he revived and rose to his feet.

Menahem exacted the money from all of Israel's powerful and wealthy men, 50 shekels from each, to pay the king of Aram. As a result, the king of Aram retreated and did not remain there in the land.

Then Remaliah's son Pekah, Pekahiah's officer, conspired against him with Argob and Arieh. Accompanied by 50 Gileadite men, Pekah attacked Pekahiah inside the palace of the king's compound in Samaria, executed him, and reigned as king in his place.

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?"

throwing their gods into the fire, since they weren't gods but rather were the product of men's handiwork wood and stone. And so they destroyed them.

That very night, the angel of the LORD went out to the camp of the Assyrian army and killed 185,000 men. Early the next morning, when the army of Israel arose, all 185,000 soldiers were dead.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and asked him, "What did these men have to say, and where did they come from?" Hezekiah replied, "They came from a country far away from Babylon."

"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.

But you won't need to force them to be accountable for money already paid to them, since they're faithful."

Shaphan the scribe reported to King Josiah, brought up the matter to him, and told him, "Your servants have distributed the money that was found in the Temple by giving it to the workmen who supervise the LORD's Temple."

and she told them, "This is what the LORD God of Israel says: "Tell the man who sent you to me:

The king went up to the LORD's Temple, accompanied by all the men of Judah, everyone who lived in Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and everyone including those who were unimportant and those who were important and he read to them everything written in the Book of the Covenant that had been discovered in the LORD's Temple.

The king unseated the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to burn incense in the high places throughout the cities of Judah and in the environs surrounding Jerusalem, including those who had been burning incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the constellations, and to every star in the heavens.

As Josiah turned around, he observed the graves located there on the mountain, so he sent for and recovered the bones from the graves and burned them on the altar to defile it, in keeping with the message from the LORD that the godly man had proclaimed when he was declaring these things.

He asked, "What is this monument that I'm looking at?" The men who lived in that city answered him, "It's the grave of that godly man who came from Judah and predicted these things that you've done against the altar at Bethel!"

He sent Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon, along with the king's mother, the king's wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

one overseer from the city who supervised the soldiers, five of the king's advisors who had been discovered in the city, the scribe who served the army captain who mustered the army of the land, and 60 men of the land who were discovered in the city.

When all the captains of the armies, along with their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, these men visited Gedaliah at Mizpah: Nethaniah's son Ishmael, Kareah's son Johanan, Tanhumeth the Netophathite's son Seraiah, and Jaazaniah, who was descended from the Maacathites.

Gedaliah made this promise to them and to their men: "Don't be afraid of the servants of the Chaldeans. Live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and things will go well with you."

Nevertheless, seven months later, Nethaniah's son Ishmael, the grandson of Elishama from the royal family, came with ten men and attacked Gedaliah. As a result, he died along with the Jews and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.