Javan's descendants included Elisha, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim,

anoint Nimshi's son Jehu as king over Israel, and anoint Shaphat's son Elisha from Abel-meholah as a prophet to replace you.

Whoever escapes from Hazael's sword Jehu will execute, and whoever escapes from Jehu's sword Elisha will put to death.

Elijah left there and located Shaphat's son Elisha, who was plowing, along with a total of twelve pairs of oxen. (He was plowing with the twelfth pair.) As Elijah passed by, he tossed his cloak at Elisha.

So Elisha turned back, took the pair of oxen, sacrificed them, boiled their flesh using the farm implements for fuel, and gave the food to the people with him. Then he got up, followed Elijah, and became his servant.

As the time drew near when the LORD was about to take Elijah to heaven in a wind storm, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.

Elijah instructed Elisha, "Remain here on this side, please, because the LORD is sending me as far as Bethel." But Elisha replied, "As the LORD lives, I'm not going to leave you while you're still alive!" So they both went on to Bethel.

When the Guild of Prophets who lived in Bethel came out to greet Elisha, they asked him, "You are aware, aren't you, that later today the LORD is going to remove your master from being your mentor?" "Of course I'm aware of it," he said. "Calm down."

Elijah also spoke to him, "Elisha, remain here on this side, please, because the LORD is sending me to Jericho." But Elisha responded, "As the LORD lives, and while you're still alive, I'm not going to leave you!" So they went to Jericho.

The Guild of Prophets who lived in Jericho approached Elisha and asked him, "You are aware, aren't you, that later today the LORD is going to remove your master from being your mentor?" "Of course I'm aware of it," he said. "Calm down."

Elijah also spoke to him, "Elisha, remain here on this side, please, because the LORD is sending me to the Jordan River."

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.

When they had crossed the Jordan River, Elijah invited Elisha, "Ask me what you want me to do for you before I'm taken away from you." So Elisha asked, "Please, may there be a double portion of your spirit upon me!"

As Elisha continued to watch, he cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots of Israel and its cavalry!" Then he did not see Elijah anymore.

After this, Elisha gripped his clothes that he was wearing, tore them apart into two pieces, picked up Elijah's ornamented cloak that had fallen from him, and went back to stand on the bank of the Jordan River.

Elisha took hold of Elijah's ornamental cloak that had been left behind, struck the water, and cried out: "Where is the LORD God of Elijah?" All of a sudden, after he had struck the water, the water divided into two parts! One side of the river stood opposite the other, and Elisha crossed over.

As soon as the Guild of Prophets who lived adjacent to Jericho saw Elisha, they began to announce, "The spirit of Elijah is at rest on Elisha!" So they came out to meet him and they greeted him by bowing low to the ground in front of him.

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."

By the time they returned, Elisha was living in Jericho. Then Elisha asked them, "Didn't I tell you not to go?"

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."

Elisha ordered them, "Bring me a new bowl and put some salt in it." So they brought him what he had requested.

Elisha went out to the springs, threw the salt into them, and declared, "This is what the LORD says: "I have purified these waters. Neither death nor barrenness is to flow from them anymore.'"

As a result, the water springs remain pure to this day, just as Elisha had declared.

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!"

Jehoshaphat asked, "Isn't there a prophet who belongs to the LORD and through whom we can ask the LORD a question?" One of the king of Israel's attendants replied, "Shaphat's son Elisha lives here. He used to be Elijah's personal attendant."

Jehoshaphat answered, "He receives messages from the LORD." So the king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom went to visit Elisha.

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!"

But Elisha responded, "As the LORD of the Heavenly Armies lives, in whose presence I stand, I would never pay attention to you or even look in your direction were it not for my continuous respect for the presence of King Jehoshaphat of Judah.

As the musician played, the hand of the LORD rested on Elisha, so he said, "This is what the LORD says: "Fill this valley with trench after trench!'

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."

So she left Elisha, shut the door behind her and her children, and while they kept on bringing vessels to her, she kept on pouring oil.

Some time later, Elisha went to Shunem, where he met a prominent and wealthy woman who persuaded him to have a meal with her. As a result, whenever he was in the area, he stopped by to eat with her.

One day, Elisha came by to visit and stopped in to rest in the upper chamber.

Elisha told him, "Ask her, "Look how you've gone to all this trouble to care for us! What can I do for you? Do you wish to be mentioned to the king or to the head of the army?'" She replied, "I'm at home living among my own people."

"Call her," Elisha ordered. After he called her, she came and stood in the doorway,

"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.

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."

When Elisha entered the house, there was the youngster, dead and laid out on Elisha's bed!

Then he approached the child and lay down with his mouth near the child's, with his eyes near those of the child, and taking the child's hands in his. As Elisha stretched himself on the child, the child's flesh began to grow warm.

He called out to Gehazi, "Go get the Shunammite woman!" So he called her. When she came in to see Elisha, he told her, "Take back your son!"

Elisha returned to Gilgal during a time of famine in the land. While the Guild of Prophets were having a meal with him, he instructed his attendant, "Put a large pot on the fire and boil some stew for the Guild of Prophets."

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?"

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 Naaman arrived with his horses and chariots and stood in front of the door to Elisha's house.

Elisha sent a messenger out to him, who told him, "Go bathe in the Jordan River seven times. Your flesh will be restored for you. Now stay clean!"

But Elisha replied, "As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will not receive anything from you." Though Naaman urged him to take it, Elisha declined.

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."

Later he went to address his master. Elisha asked him, "Where did you go, Gehazi?" "Your servant went nowhere in particular," he said.

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?

Naaman's leprosy will plague you and your descendants forever!" As he left Elisha's presence, he was infected with leprosy that looked like white snow.

One day the Guild of Prophets told Elisha, "Notice how the place where we are living is too small for us.

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

"No, your majesty," one of his servants said. "Elisha the prophet, who lives in Israel, tells the king of Israel what you talk about in your bedroom!"

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!?"

Elisha replied, "Stop being afraid, because there are more with us than with them!"

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!

When the army approached him, Elisha spoke to the LORD, asking him, "LORD, I'm asking you please to afflict this group of people with blindness!" So he afflicted them with blindness, just as Elisha had asked.

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.

When they arrived in Samaria, Elisha asked the LORD, "Enable them to see again." So the LORD did so, and there they were right in the middle of Samaria!

When the king of Israel saw Elisha, he asked him, "Shall I execute them, my father?"

He said, "May God do to me and more also! if the head of Shaphat's son Elisha remains on his shoulders today!"

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?"

So Elisha responded, "Listen to this message from the LORD! "This is what the LORD says: "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."'"

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."

Just as he was telling the king about Elisha's having restored the dead to life, the woman whose son had been restored arrived and appealed to the king for her house and her land! Gehazi told the king, "Your majesty, this is the woman! And here's her son, whom Elisha restored to life!"

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

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

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

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."

So he left Elisha and returned to his master, who asked him, "What did Elisha tell you?" He replied, "He told me that you would certainly get better."

Elisha called one of the members of the Guild of Prophets and told him, "Get ready to run, take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead.

When Elisha fell ill with the sickness from which he was about to die, King Joash of Israel came down to see him, wept in his presence, and told him, "My father, Israel's chariots and horsemen!"

Elisha told him, "Pick up a bow and some arrows." So he picked up a bow and some arrows.

Then Elisha told Israel's king, "Draw the bow!" As he did so, Elisha laid his hands on top of the king's hands

and ordered him, "Open a window that faces east." So he did so. Elisha ordered him, "Shoot!" So he shot. Then Elisha said, "This is the LORD's arrow of victory the victory arrow against Aram, because you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you will have utterly finished them off."

After this Elisha said, "Pick up the arrows." So the king picked them up. Then Elisha told the king of Israel, "Strike the ground!" So he struck it three times and then stood still.

Later, Elisha died and was buried. Now at that time, various Moabite marauders had been invading the land each spring.

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.

Javan's descendants were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.

There were also many lepers in Israel in the prophet Elisha's time, yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."