Then Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her. And when she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.”

She came and fell at his feet, bowing herself to the ground [in respect and gratitude]. Then she picked up her son and left.

The Arameans (Syrians) had gone out in bands [as raiders] and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife [as a servant].

She said to her mistress, “I wish that my master [Naaman] were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would heal him of his leprosy.”

And the king said to her, “What is the matter with you?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son so we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give your son so that we may eat him’; but she had hidden her son.”

So the woman set out and did everything in accordance with the word of the man of God. She and her household went and stayed temporarily as foreigners in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

At the end of the seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines; and she went to appeal to the king [of Israel] for her house and for her land.

When the king asked the woman, she told him [everything]. So the king appointed for her a certain high official, saying, “Restore everything that was hers, including all the produce of the field since the day that she left the land until now.”

So when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard about it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked down from the [upper] window.

As Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, “Is it well, Zimri, your master’s murderer?”

When he came in, he ate and drank, and said, “See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.”

When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah [king of Judah] saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring.

When Athaliah heard the sound of the guards and of the people, she went into the house of the Lord to the people.

When she looked, behold, there stood the [young] king [on the platform] by the pillar, as was customary [on such occasions], and the captains and the trumpeters were beside the king; and all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing the trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her clothes and cried, “Treason! Treason!”

So they seized her, and she went through the horses’ entrance to the king’s house (palace), and she was put to death there.

Moreover, Manasseh shed a very great quantity of innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah sin, by doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (she was living in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter [the new part of the city]); and they spoke to her.

She said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me,

and also for the innocent blood that he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the Lord would not pardon it.

Noah, [and his sons] Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, Aram, Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech.

Shem [his genealogical line], Arpachshad, Shelah,

Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine: she gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. The sons of Jokshan: Sheba and Dedan.

Later, when Hezron was sixty years old, he married the daughter of Machir the father of Gilead, and she bore him Segub.

Jerahmeel had another wife, named Atarah; she was the mother of Onam.

The name of Abishur’s wife was Abihail; she bore him Ahban and Molid.

So Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant as a wife; she bore him Attai.

The sons of Ezrah: Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon. These are the sons of Bithia daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took: she conceived and gave birth to Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa.

The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his Aramean concubine bore; she gave birth to Machir the father of Gilead.

Maacah the wife of Machir gave birth to a son; she named him Peresh. The name of his brother was Sheresh; his sons were Ulam and Rakem.

It happened that as the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the City of David, Michal [David’s wife] the daughter of Saul, looking down through a window, saw King David leaping and dancing [in celebration]; and she despised him in her heart.

But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house for My Name, because you have shed so much blood on the earth before me.

Obil the Ishmaelite was in charge of the camels; and Jehdeiah the Meronothite was in charge of the donkeys.

But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My Name (Presence), because you are a man of war and have shed blood.’

When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with riddles. She was accompanied by a very large number of attendants, with camels bearing spices (balsam oil) and a large amount of gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she talked with him about all that was on her mind.

She said to the king, “The report which I heard in my own land regarding your [accomplishments and your] words and your wisdom was true,

Then she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, a very large amount of spices (balsam oil) and precious stones; there was no such spice [anywhere] like that which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all [the things] she desired, whatever she asked, besides a return for what she had brought to the king. So she returned to her own land with her servants.

She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

He also removed Maacah, King Asa’s mother, from the position of queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa cut down her idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Brook Kidron.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she rose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah.

But Jehoshabeath, the king’s daughter, took Joash the [infant] son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and she placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram [of Judah] and wife of Jehoiada the priest, hid Joash from [his grandmother] Athaliah so that she did not murder him (for Jehoshabeath was the sister of Ahaziah).

When Athaliah heard the sound of the people running and praising the king, she went into the house of the Lord to [see what] the people [were doing].

So they seized Athaliah, and when she arrived at the entrance of the Horse Gate of the king’s house (palace), they put her to death there.

So Hilkiah and those whom the king had told went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem, in the Second Quarter); and they spoke to her about this.

And she answered them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me,

to bring Queen Vashti before the king, wearing her royal crown (high turban), to display her beauty before the people and the officials, for she was lovely to see.

[He said,] “According to the law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti because she did not obey the command of King Ahasuerus which was conveyed by the eunuchs?”

For the queen’s conduct will become known to all women, causing them to look on their husbands with contempt (disrespect), since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she did not come.’

If it pleases the king, let a royal command be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of the Persians and Medes so that it cannot be repealed or modified, that Vashti is no longer to come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better and more worthy than she.

After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.

He was the guardian of Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had no father or mother. The young woman was beautiful of form and face; and when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her in as his own daughter.

then the young woman would go before the king in this way: anything that she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem into the king’s palace.

In the evening she would go in and the next morning she would return to the second harem, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he delighted in her and she was summoned by name.

Now as for Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai who had taken her in as his [own] daughter, when her turn came to go in to the king, she requested nothing except what Hegai the king’s eunuch [and attendant] who was in charge of the women, advised. And Esther found favor in the sight of all who saw her.

Now the king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the [other] virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen in the place of Vashti.

Esther had not revealed her family or her people [that is, her Jewish background], just as Mordecai had instructed her; for Esther did what Mordecai told her just as when she was under his care.

When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her [what had happened], the queen was seized by great fear. She sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he would remove his sackcloth, but he did not accept them.

When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she found favor in his sight; and the king extended to her the golden scepter which was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the top of the scepter.

Haman also said, “Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the banquet she had prepared; and tomorrow also I am invited by her [together] with the king.

Then she said, “If it pleases the king and if I have found favor before him and the matter is proper in the king’s view and I am pleasing in his sight, let it be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, which he wrote [in order] to destroy the Jews who are in all the king’s provinces.

“She treats her young cruelly, as if they were not hers;
Though her labor is in vain because she is unconcerned [for the safety of her brood],

“Yet when she lifts herself on high,
[So swift is she that] she laughs at the horse and his rider.

For He who avenges blood [unjustly shed] remembers them (His people);
He does not forget the cry of the afflicted and abused.

She will be brought to the King in embroidered garments;
The virgins, her companions who follow her,
Will be brought to You.

God is in the midst of her [His city], she will not be moved;
God will help her when the morning dawns.

“The kings of the [enemies’] armies flee, they flee,
And the beautiful woman who remains at home divides the spoil [left behind].”

The bird has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—
Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.

And shed innocent blood,
Even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,
Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with their blood.

If they say, “Come with us;
Let us lie in wait to shed blood,
Let us ambush the innocent without cause;

For their feet run to evil,
And they hurry to shed blood.

Wisdom shouts in the street,
She raises her voice in the markets;

She calls out at the head of the noisy streets [where large crowds gather];
At the entrance of the city gates she speaks her words:

She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her,
And happy [blessed, considered fortunate, to be admired] is everyone who holds her tightly.

“Do not turn away from her (Wisdom) and she will guard and protect you;
Love her, and she will watch over you.

“Prize wisdom [and exalt her], and she will exalt you;
She will honor you if you embrace her.

“She will place on your head a garland of grace;
She will present you with a crown of beauty and glory.”

Take hold of instruction; [actively seek it, grip it firmly and] do not let go.
Guard her, for she is your life.

But in the end she is bitter like [the extract of] wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.

So that she does not think [seriously] about the path of life;
Her ways are aimless and unstable; you cannot know where her path leads.

A proud look [the attitude that makes one overestimate oneself and discount others], a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,

She was boisterous and rebellious;
She would not stay at home.

At times she was in the streets, at times in the market places,
Lurking and setting her ambush at every corner.

So she caught him and kissed him
And with a brazen and impudent face she said to him:

With her many persuasions she caused him to yield;
With her flattering lips she seduced him.

For she has cast down many [mortally] wounded;
Indeed, all who were killed by her were strong.

Beside the gates, at the entrance to the city,
At the entrance of the doors, she cries out:

Wisdom has built her [spacious and sufficient] house;
She has hewn out and set up her seven pillars.

She has prepared her food, she has mixed her wine;
She has also set her table.

She has sent out her maidens, she calls
From the highest places of the city:

The foolish woman is restless and noisy;
She is naive and easily misled and thoughtless, and knows nothing at all [of eternal value].

She sits at the doorway of her house,
On a seat by the high and conspicuous places of the city,

“Whoever is naive or inexperienced, let him turn in here!”
And to him who lacks understanding (common sense), she says,

A virtuous and excellent wife [worthy of honor] is the crown of her husband,
But she who shames him [with her foolishness] is like rottenness in his bones.

Listen to your father, who sired you,
And do not despise your mother when she is old.

She lurks and lies in wait like a robber [who waits for prey],
And she increases the faithless among men.

Whoever attempts to restrain her [criticism] might as well try to stop the wind,
And grasps oil with his right hand.

This is the way of an adulterous woman:
She eats and wipes her mouth
And says, “I have done no wrong.”

Under an unloved woman when she gets married,
And under a maidservant when she supplants her mistress.