Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman^(A)

²¹ When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake,^(B) a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.^{(C) 22} Then one of the synagogue leaders,^(D) named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. ²³ He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on^(E) her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴ So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. ²⁵ And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding^(F) for twelve years. ²⁶ She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. ²⁷ When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes,^(G) I will be healed.” ²⁹ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.^(H)

³⁰ At once Jesus realized that power^(I) had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹ “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

³² But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³ Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.^(J) Go in peace^(K) and be freed from your suffering.”

³⁵ While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader.^(L) “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

³⁶ Overhearing^[a] what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

³⁷ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James.^{(M) 38} When they came to the home of the synagogue leader,^(N) Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.”^{(O) 40} But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand^(P) and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).^{(Q) 42} Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this,^(R) and told them to give her something to eat.

The Widow’s Olive Oil

4 The wife of a man from the company^(A) of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor^(B) is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”

² Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”^(C)

³ Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”

⁵ She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. ⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”

But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.

⁷ She went and told the man of God,^(D) and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

The Shunammite’s Son Restored to Life

⁸ One day Elisha went to Shunem.^(E) And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. ⁹ She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. ¹⁰ Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay^(F) there whenever he comes to us.”

¹¹ One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. ¹² He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite.”^(G) So he called her, and she stood before him. ¹³ Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’”

She replied, “I have a home among my own people.”

¹⁴ “What can be done for her?” Elisha asked.

Gehazi said, “She has no son, and her husband is old.”

¹⁵ Then Elisha said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. ¹⁶ “About this time^(H) next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a son in your arms.”

“No, my lord!” she objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”

¹⁷ But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

¹⁸ The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.^{(I) 19} He said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” ²⁰ After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. ²¹ She went up and laid him on the bed^(J) of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.

²² She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.”

²³ “Why go to him today?” he asked. “It’s not the New Moon^(K) or the Sabbath.”

“That’s all right,” she said.

²⁴ She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.” ²⁵ So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.^(L)

When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the Shunammite! ²⁶ Run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’”

“Everything is all right,” she said.

²⁷ When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress,^(M) but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”

²⁸ “Did I ask you for a son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”

²⁹ Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt,^(N) take my staff^(O) in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

³⁰ But the child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.

³¹ Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

³² When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch.^{(P) 33} He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed^(Q) to the Lord. ³⁴ Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched^(R) himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. ³⁵ Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times^(S) and opened his eyes.^(T)

³⁶ Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your son.”^{(U) 37} She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.

Death in the Pot

³⁸ Elisha returned to Gilgal^(V) and there was a famine^(W) in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these prophets.”

³⁹ One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine and picked as many of its gourds as his garment could hold. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. ⁴⁰ The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

⁴¹ Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He put it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.^(X)

Feeding of a Hundred

⁴² A man came from Baal Shalishah,^(Y) bringing the man of God twenty loaves^(Z) of barley bread^(AA) baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.

⁴³ “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked.

But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat.^(AB) For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.^(AC)’” ⁴⁴ Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the Lord.