Elijah responded to the captain of the 50, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men.

Elijah responded, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men.” So a divine fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men.

Then the king sent a third captain of 50 with his 50 men. The third captain of 50 went up and fell on his knees in front of Elijah and begged him, “Man of God, please let my life and the lives of these 50 servants of yours be precious in your sight.

Already fire has come down from heaven and consumed the first two captains of 50 with their fifties, but this time let my life be precious in your sight.”

and Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord is sending me on to Bethel.”

But Elisha replied, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; the Lord is sending me to Jericho.”

But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho.

Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord is sending me to the Jordan.”

But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.

After they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken from you.”

So Elisha answered, “Please, let me inherit two shares of your spirit.”

Elijah replied, “You have asked for something difficult. If you see me being taken from you, you will have it. If not, you won’t.”

As Elisha watched, he kept crying out, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!” Then he never saw Elijah again. He took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces.

He replied, “Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.”

After they had brought him one,

Then he sent a message to King Jehoshaphat of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?”

Jehoshaphat said, “I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

Now, bring me a musician.”

While the musician played, the Lord’s hand came on Elisha.

One of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, has died. You know that your servant feared the Lord. Now the creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves.”

Elisha asked her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?”

She said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

When they were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.”

But he replied, “There aren’t any more.” Then the oil stopped.

Then he said to Gehazi, “Say to her, ‘Look, you’ve gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’”

She answered, “I am living among my own people.”

Elisha said, “At this time next year you will have a son in your arms.”

Then she said, “No, my lord. Man of God, do not deceive your servant.”

Suddenly he complained to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

She summoned her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so I can hurry to the man of God and then come back.”

Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Hurry, don’t slow the pace for me unless I tell you.”

When she came up to the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone—she is in severe anguish, and the Lord has hidden it from me. He hasn’t told me.”

Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”

So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your mantle under your belt, take my staff with you, and go. If you meet anyone, don’t stop to greet him, and if a man greets you, don’t answer him. Then place my staff on the boy’s face.”

She said to her mistress, “If only my master would go to the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his skin disease.”

He brought the letter to the king of Israel, and it read:

When this letter comes to you, note that I have sent you my servant Naaman for you to cure him of his skin disease.

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life that this man expects me to cure a man of his skin disease? Think it over and you will see that he is only picking a fight with me.”

When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel tore his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Have him come to me, and he will know there is a prophet in Israel.”

But his servants approached and said to him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more should you do it when he tells you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”

However, in a particular matter may the Lord pardon your servant: When my master, the king of Aram, goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship and I, as his right-hand man, bow in the temple of Rimmon—when I bow in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant in this matter.”

Gehazi, the attendant of Elisha the man of God, thought: My master has let this Aramean Naaman off lightly by not accepting from him what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.

Gehazi said, “It’s all right. My master has sent me to say, ‘I have just now discovered that two young men from the sons of the prophets have come to me from the hill country of Ephraim. Please give them 75 pounds of silver and two changes of clothes.’”

But Elisha questioned him, “Wasn’t my spirit there when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to accept money and clothes, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, and male and female slaves?

As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron ax head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Oh, my master, it was borrowed!”

When the king of Aram was waging war against Israel, he conferred with his servants, “My camp will be at such and such a place.”

The king of Aram was enraged because of this matter, and he called his servants and demanded of them, “Tell me, which one of us is for the king of Israel?”

One of his servants said, “No one, my lord the king. Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in your bedroom.”

When the servant of the man of God got up early and went out, he discovered an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city. So he asked Elisha, “Oh, my master, what are we to do?”

Then Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will take you to the man you’re looking for.” And he led them to Samaria.

When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them? I will kill them.”

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, “My lord the king, help!”

Then the king asked her, “What’s the matter?”

She said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him today. Then we will eat my son tomorrow.’

So we boiled my son and ate him, and I said to her the next day, ‘Give up your son, and we will eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.”

He announced, “May God punish me and do so severely if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a man ahead of him, but before the messenger got to him, Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent someone to cut off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door to keep him out. Isn’t the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

So the king got up in the night and said to his servants, “Let me tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving, so they have left the camp to hide in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we will take them alive and go into the city.’”

The king had been speaking to Gehazi, the attendant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things Elisha has done.”

While he was telling the king how Elisha restored the dead son to life, the woman whose son he had restored to life came to appeal to the king for her house and field. So Gehazi said, “My lord the king, this is the woman and this is the son Elisha restored to life.”

Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him a gift: 40 camel-loads of all kinds of goods from Damascus. When he came and stood before him, he said, “Your son, Ben-hadad king of Aram, has sent me to ask you, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”

Elisha told him, “Go say to him, ‘You are sure to recover.’ But the Lord has shown me that he is sure to die.”

and Hazael asked, “Why is my lord weeping?”

He replied, “Because I know the evil you will do to the people of Israel. You will set their fortresses on fire. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will dash their little ones to pieces. You will rip open their pregnant women.”

Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, do this monstrous thing?”

Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”

Hazael left Elisha and went to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha say to you?”

He responded, “He told me you are sure to recover.”

You are to strike down the house of your master Ahab so that I may avenge the blood shed by the hand of Jezebel—the blood of My servants the prophets and of all the servants of the Lord.

But they replied, “That’s a lie! Tell us!”

So Jehu said, “He talked to me about this and that and said, ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’”

But King Joram had returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds that the Arameans had inflicted on him when he fought against Aram’s King Hazael. Jehu said, “If you commanders wish to make me king, then don’t let anyone escape from the city to go tell about it in Jezreel.”

So a horseman went to meet Jehu and said, “This is what the king asks: ‘Do you come in peace?’”

Jehu replied, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”

The watchman reported, “The messenger reached them but hasn’t started back.”

So he sent out a second horseman, who went to them and said, “This is what the king asks: ‘Do you come in peace?’”

Jehu answered, “What do you have to do with peace? Fall in behind me.”

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

Then Jehu wrote them a second letter, saying:

If you are on my side, and if you will obey me, bring me the heads of your master’s sons at this time tomorrow at Jezreel.

All 70 of the king’s sons were being cared for by the city’s prominent men.

The next morning when he went out and stood at the gate, he said to all the people, “You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him. But who struck down all these?

When he left there, he found Jehonadab son of Rechab coming to meet him. He greeted him and then asked, “Is your heart one with mine?”

“It is,” Jehonadab replied.

Jehu said, “If it is, give me your hand.”

So he gave him his hand, and Jehu pulled him up into the chariot with him.

Then he said, “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord!” So he let him ride with him in his chariot.

Now, therefore, summon to me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, and all his priests. None must be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. Whoever is missing will not live.” However, Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the servants of Baal.

Nevertheless, the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in My sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart, four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.”

When Elisha became sick with the illness that he died from, Jehoash king of Israel went down and wept over him and said, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

King Jehoash of Israel sent word to Amaziah king of Judah, saying, “The thistle that was in Lebanon once sent a message to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. March up and save me from the power of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are rising up against me.”

Then King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, “Offer on the great altar the morning burnt offering, the evening grain offering, and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering. Also offer the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of sacrifice. The bronze altar will be for me to seek guidance.”

Still, the Lord warned Israel and Judah through every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commands and statutes according to all the law I commanded your ancestors and sent to you through My servants the prophets.”

So Hezekiah king of Judah sent word to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you demand from me, I will pay.” The king of Assyria demanded 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold from King Hezekiah of Judah.

You think mere words are strategy and strength for war. What are you now relying on so that you have rebelled against me?

Suppose you say to me: We trust in the Lord our God. Isn’t He the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem: You must worship at this altar in Jerusalem?’

“So now make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria. I’ll give you 2,000 horses if you’re able to supply riders for them!

How then can you drive back a single officer among the least of my master’s servants and trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

Have I attacked this place to destroy it without the Lord’s approval? The Lord said to me, ‘Attack this land and destroy it.’”

But the Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words? Hasn’t he also sent me to the men who sit on the wall, destined with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?”

This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; he can’t deliver you from my hand.

“Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: ‘Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then every one of you may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and every one may drink water from his own cistern

until I come and take you away to a land like your own land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But don’t listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you, saying: The Lord will deliver us.

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

Who among all the gods of the lands has delivered his land from my power? So will the Lord deliver Jerusalem?’”

who said to them, “Tell your master this, ‘The Lord says: Don’t be afraid because of the words you have heard, that the king of Assyria’s attendants have blasphemed Me with.

Did the gods of the nations that my predecessors destroyed rescue them—nations such as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar?

Now, Lord our God, please save us from his hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God—You alone.

Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “The Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘I have heard your prayer to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria.’

You have mocked the Lord through your messengers.
You have said:

With my many chariots
I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon.
I cut down its tallest cedars,
its choice cypress trees.
I came to its farthest outpost,
its densest forest.

I dug wells,
and I drank foreign waters.
I dried up all the streams of Egypt
with the soles of my feet.

But I know your sitting down,
your going out and your coming in,
and your raging against Me.

Because your raging against Me
and your arrogance have reached My ears,
I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit in your mouth;
I will make you go back
the way you came.

I will defend this city and rescue it
for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.”

“Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of My people, ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor David says: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the Lord’s temple.

I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for My sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

Hezekiah had asked Isaiah, “What is the sign that the Lord will heal me and that I will go up to the Lord’s temple on the third day?”

Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your palace?”

Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything in my palace. There isn’t anything in my treasuries that I didn’t show them.”

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,” for he thought: Why not, if there will be peace and security during my lifetime?

He built altars in the Lord’s temple, where the Lord had said, “Jerusalem is where I will put My name.”

Manasseh set up the carved image of Asherah, which he made, in the temple that the Lord had spoken about to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to wander from the land I gave to their ancestors if only they will be careful to do all I have commanded them—the whole law that My servant Moses commanded them.”

I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies,