When he turned around and looked at them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore to pieces forty-two of the boys.

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].

Then she came and told the man of God. He said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

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

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.

Elisha said, “At this season next year, you will embrace a son.” She said, “No, my lord. O man of God, do not lie to your maidservant.”

She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door [of the small upper room] behind him and left.

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.”

He said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither the New Moon nor the Sabbath.” And she said, “It will be all right.”

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.”

Then she said, “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not give me false hope’?”

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.