The Living Bible (118 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
One day the wife of one of the seminary students came to Elisha to tell him of her husband’s death. He was a man who had loved God, she said. But he had owed some money when he died, and now the creditor was demanding it back. If she didn’t pay, he said he would take her two sons as his slaves.
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“What shall I do?” Elisha asked. “How much food do you have in the house?”
“Nothing at all, except a jar of olive oil,” she replied.
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“Then borrow many pots and pans from your friends and neighbors!” he instructed.
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“Go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Then pour olive oil from your jar into the pots and pans, setting them aside as they are filled!”
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So she did. Her sons brought the pots and pans to her, and she filled one after another!
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Soon every container was full to the brim!
“Bring me another jar,” she said to her sons.
“There aren’t any more!” they told her. And then the oil stopped flowing!
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When she told the prophet what had happened, he said to her, “Go and sell the oil and pay your debt, and there will be enough money left for you and your sons to live on!”
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One day Elisha went to Shunem. A prominent woman of the city invited him in to eat, and afterwards, whenever he passed that way, he stopped for dinner.
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She said to her husband, “I’m sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy prophet.
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Let’s make a little room for him on the roof; we can put in a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, and he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”
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Once when he was resting in the room he said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman I want to speak to her.”
When she came,
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he said to Gehazi, “Tell her that we appreciate her kindness to us. Now ask her what we can do for her. Does she want me to put in a good word for her to the king or to the general of the army?”
“No,” she replied, “I am perfectly content.”
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“What can we do for her?” he asked Gehazi afterwards.
He suggested, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”
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“Call her back again,” Elisha told him.
When she returned, he talked to her as she stood in the doorway. “Next year at about this time you shall have a son!”
“O man of God,” she exclaimed, “don’t lie to me like that!”
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But it was true; the woman soon conceived and had a baby boy the following year, just as Elisha had predicted.
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One day when her child was older, he went out to visit his father, who was working with the reapers.
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He complained about a headache and soon was moaning in pain. His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”
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So he took him home, and his mother held him on her lap; but around noontime he died.
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She carried him up to the bed of the prophet and shut the door;
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then she sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the prophet and come right back.”
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“Why today?” he asked. “This isn’t a religious holiday.”
But she said, “It’s important. I must go.”
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So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down for my comfort unless I tell you to.”
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As she approached Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance and said to Gehazi, “Look, that woman from Shunem is coming.
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Run and meet her and ask her what the trouble is. See if her husband is all right and if the child is well.”
“Yes,” she told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”
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But when she came to Elisha at the mountain she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the prophet said, “Leave her alone; something is deeply troubling her and the Lord hasn’t told me what it is.”
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Then she said, “It was you who said I’d have a son. And I begged you not to lie to me!”
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Then he said to Gehazi, “Quick, take my staff! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Hurry! Lay the staff upon the child’s face.”
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But the boy’s mother said, “I swear to God that I won’t go home without you.” So Elisha returned with her.
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Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff upon the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”
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When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there upon the prophet’s bed.
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He went in and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord.
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Then he lay upon the child’s body, placing his mouth upon the child’s mouth, and his eyes upon the child’s eyes, and his hands upon the child’s hands. And the child’s body began to grow warm again!
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Then the prophet went down and walked back and forth in the house a few times; returning upstairs, he stretched himself again upon the child. This time the little boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!
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Then the prophet summoned Gehazi. “Call her!” he said. And when she came in, he said, “Here’s your son!”
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She fell to the floor at his feet and then picked up her son and went out.
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Elisha now returned to Gilgal, but there was a famine in the land. One day as he was teaching the young prophets, he said to Gehazi, “Make some stew for supper for these men.”
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One of the young men went out into the field to gather vegetables and came back with some wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into a kettle without realizing that they were poisonous.
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But after the men had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Oh, sir, there’s poison in this stew!”
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“Bring me some meal,” Elisha said. He threw it into the kettle and said, “Now it’s all right! Go ahead and eat!” And then it didn’t harm them.
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One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought Elisha a sack of fresh corn
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and twenty individual loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Elisha told Gehazi to use it to feed the young prophets.
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“What?” Gehazi exclaimed. “Feed one hundred men with only this?”
But Elisha said, “Go ahead, for the Lord says there will be plenty for all, and some will even be left over!”
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And sure enough, there was, just as the Lord had said!
The king of Syria had high admiration for Naaman, the commander-in-chief of his army, for he had led his troops to many glorious victories. So he was a great hero, but he was a leper.
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Bands of Syrians had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a little girl who had been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid.
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One day the little girl said to her mistress, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy!”
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Naaman told the king what the little girl had said.
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“Go and visit the prophet,” the king told him. “I will send a letter of introduction for you to carry to the king of Israel.”
So Naaman started out, taking gifts of $20,000 in silver, $60,000 in gold, and ten suits of clothing.
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The letter to the king of Israel said: “The man bringing this letter is my servant Naaman; I want you to heal him of his leprosy.”
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When the king of Israel read it, he tore his clothes and said, “This man sends me a leper to heal! Am I God, that I can kill and give life? He is only trying to get an excuse to invade us again.”
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But when Elisha the prophet heard about the king of Israel’s plight, he sent this message to him: “Why are you so upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet of God here in Israel.”
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So Naaman arrived with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s home.
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Elisha sent a messenger out to tell him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed of every trace of his leprosy!
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But Naaman was angry and stalked away.
“Look,” he said, “I thought at least he would come out and talk to me! I expected him to wave his hand over the leprosy and call upon the name of the Lord his God and heal me!
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Aren’t the Abana River and Pharpar River of Damascus better than all the rivers of Israel put together? If it’s rivers I need, I’ll wash at home and get rid of my leprosy.” So he went away in a rage.
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But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply to go and wash and be cured!”
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So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the prophet had told him to. And his flesh became as healthy as a little child’s, and he was healed!
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Then he and his entire party went back to find the prophet; they stood humbly before him and Naaman said, “I know at last that there is no God in all the world except in Israel; now please accept my gifts.”
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But Elisha replied, “I swear by Jehovah my God that I will not accept them.”
Naaman urged him to take them, but he absolutely refused.
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“Well,” Naaman said, “all right. But please give me two muleloads of earth to take back with me, for from now on I will never again offer any burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord.
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However, may the Lord pardon me this one thing—when my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow too.”
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“All right,” Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.
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But Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, said to himself, “My master shouldn’t have let this fellow get away without taking his gifts. I will chase after him and get something from him.”
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So Gehazi caught up with him. When Naaman saw him coming, he jumped down from his chariot and ran to meet him.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
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“Yes,” he said, “but my master has sent me to tell you that two young prophets from the hills of Ephraim have just arrived, and he would like $2,000 in silver and two suits to give to them.”
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“Take $4,000,” Naaman insisted. He gave him two expensive robes, tied up the money in two bags, and gave them to two of his servants to carry back with Gehazi.
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But when they arrived at the hill where Elisha lived,
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Gehazi took the bags from the servants and sent the men back. Then he hid the money in his house.
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When he went in to his master, Elisha asked him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”
“I haven’t been anywhere,” he replied.
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But Elisha asked him, “Don’t you realize that I was there in thought when Naaman stepped down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to receive money and clothing and olive farms and vineyards and sheep and oxen and servants?
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Because you have done this, Naaman’s leprosy shall be upon you and upon your children and your children’s children forever.”
And Gehazi walked from the room a leper, his skin as white as snow.