And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha replied, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.

Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho.

Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.

But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here from whom we may inquire of the Lord?” One of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who used to pour water over Elijah’s hands.”

Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have [of value] in the house?” She said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a [small] jar of [olive] oil.”

So she left him and shut the door behind her and her sons; they were bringing her the containers as she poured [the oil].

When the containers were all full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container.” And he said to her, “There is not a one left.” Then the oil stopped [multiplying].

She said to her husband, “Behold, I sense that this is a holy man of God who frequently passes our way.

Please, let us make a small, fully-walled upper room [on the housetop] and put a bed there for him, with a table, a chair, and a lampstand. Then whenever he comes to visit us, he can turn in there.”

And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” So he called her and she stood before him.

Now he said to Gehazi, “Say to her now, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us; what can I do for you? Would you like to be mentioned to the king or to the captain of the army?’” She answered, “I live among my own people [in peace and security and need no special favors].”

Later Elisha said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son and her husband is old.”

He said, “Call her.” So Gehazi called her, and she [came and] stood in the doorway.

But the woman conceived and gave birth to a son at that season the next year, just as Elisha had said to her.

When he had carried and brought him to his mother, he sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.

Then she called to her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, so that I may run to the man of God and return.”

Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Drive [the animal] fast; do not slow down the pace for me unless I tell you.”

So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman.

Please run now to meet her and ask her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?’” And she answered, “It is well.”

When she came to the mountain to the man of God, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi approached to push her away; but the man of God said, “Let her alone, for her soul is desperate and troubled within her; and the Lord has hidden the reason from me and has not told me.”

The mother of the child said, “As the Lord lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So Elisha arose and followed her.

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.

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.”

Now four men who were lepers were at the entrance of the [city’s] gate; and they said to one another, “Why should we sit here until we die?

If we say, ‘We will enter the city’—then the famine is in the city and we will die there; and if we sit still here, we will also die. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Arameans (Syrians). If they let us live, we will live; and if they kill us, we will only die.”

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.

And [just] as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and for her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, this is the woman and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life.”

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.”

Now Elisha came to Damascus, and Ben-hadad king of Aram (Syria) was sick; and he was told, “The man of God has come here.”

And the dogs will eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and there will be no one to bury her.’” Then he opened the door and fled.

When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Do you come in peace, Jehu?” And he answered, “What peace [can exist] as long as the fornications of your mother Jezebel and her sorceries are so many?”

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.

And he said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her underfoot.

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.”

They went to bury her, but they found nothing left of her except the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.

Then Jehu with Jehonadab the son of Rechab went into the house of Baal; and he said to the worshipers of Baal, “Search carefully and see that there are no servants of the Lord here with you, but only the worshipers of Baal.”

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

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!”

Then Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds appointed over the army and said to them, “Take her out between the ranks, and whoever follows her put to death with the sword.” For the priest had said, “Let her not be put to death in the house (temple) of the Lord.”

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

This is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:‘The virgin daughter of Zion
Has despised you and mocked you;
The daughter of Jerusalem
Has shaken her head behind you!

‘Therefore their inhabitants were powerless,
They were shattered [in spirit] and put to shame;
They were like plants of the field, the green herb,
As grass on the housetops is scorched before it is grown up.

‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: “He will not come to this city [Jerusalem] nor shoot an arrow there; nor will he come before it with a shield nor throw up a siege ramp against it.

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.