¹⁷ Some time later the widow's son got sick; he got worse and worse, and finally he died. ¹⁸ She said to Elijah, “Man of God, why did you do this to me? Did you come here to remind God of my sins and so cause my son's death?”

¹⁹ “Give the boy to me,” Elijah said. He took the boy from her arms, carried him upstairs to the room where he was staying, and laid him on the bed. ²⁰ Then he prayed aloud, “O Lord my God, why have you done such a terrible thing to this widow? She has been kind enough to take care of me, and now you kill her son!” ^21 (A)Then Elijah stretched himself out on the boy three times and prayed, “O Lord my God, restore this child to life!” ²² The Lord answered Elijah's prayer; the child started breathing again and revived.

²³ Elijah took the boy back downstairs to his mother and said to her, “Look, your son is alive!”

²⁴ She answered, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the Lord really speaks through you!”

²⁵ So she set out and went to Mount Carmel, where Elisha was.

Elisha saw her coming while she was still some distance away, and he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there comes the woman from Shunem! ²⁶ Hurry to her and find out if everything is all right with her, her husband, and her son.”

She told Gehazi that everything was all right, ²⁷ but when she came to Elisha, she bowed down before him and took hold of his feet. Gehazi was about to push her away, but Elisha said, “Leave her alone. Can't you see she's deeply distressed? And the Lord has not told me a thing about it.”

²⁸ The woman said to him, “Sir, did I ask you for a son? Didn't I tell you not to get my hopes up?”

²⁹ Elisha turned to Gehazi and said, “Hurry! Take my walking stick and go. Don't stop to greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, don't take time to answer. Go straight to the house and hold my stick over the boy.”

³⁰ The woman said to Elisha, “I swear by my loyalty to the living Lord and to you that I will not leave you!” So the two of them started back together. ³¹ Gehazi went on ahead and held Elisha's stick over the child, but there was no sound or any other sign of life. So he went back to meet Elisha and said, “The boy didn't wake up.”

³² When Elisha arrived, he went alone into the room and saw the boy lying dead on the bed. ³³ He closed the door and prayed to the Lord. ^34 (A)Then he lay down on the boy, placing his mouth, eyes, and hands on the boy's mouth, eyes, and hands. As he lay stretched out over the boy, the boy's body started to get warm. ³⁵ Elisha got up, walked around the room, and then went back and again stretched himself over the boy. The boy sneezed seven times and then opened his eyes. ³⁶ Elisha called Gehazi and told him to call the boy's mother. When she came in, he said to her, “Here's your son.” ³⁷ She fell at Elisha's feet, with her face touching the ground; then she took her son and left.

Eleazar Dies for His Faith

^18 (A)There was an elderly and highly respected teacher of the Law by the name of Eleazar, whose mouth was being forced open to make him eat pork. ^19-20 But he preferred an honorable death rather than a life of disgrace. So he spit out the meat and went willingly to the place of torture, showing how people should have courage to refuse unclean food, even if it costs them their lives. ^21-22 Those in charge of the sacrifice had been friends of Eleazar for a long time, and because of this friendship they told him privately to bring meat that was lawful for him to eat. He need only pretend to eat the pork, they said, and in this way he would not be put to death.

As soon as he said these things, he went^[a] off to be tortured, ²⁹ and the very people who had treated him kindly a few minutes before, now turned against him, because they thought he had spoken like a madman. ³⁰ When they had beaten him almost to the point of death, he groaned and said,

³¹ So Eleazar died. But his courageous death was remembered as a glorious example, not only by young people, but by the entire nation as well.

A Mother and Her Sons Die for Their Faith

7 ^(B)On another occasion a Jewish mother and her seven sons were arrested. The king was having them beaten to force them to eat pork. ² Then one of the young men said,

³ This made the king so furious that he gave orders for huge pans and kettles to be heated red hot, ⁴ and it was done immediately. Then he told his men to cut off the tongue of the one who had spoken and to scalp him and chop off his hands and feet, while his mother and six brothers looked on. ⁵ After the young man had been reduced to a helpless mass of breathing flesh, the king gave orders for him to be carried over and thrown into one of the pans. As a cloud of smoke streamed up from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die bravely, saying, ^6 (C)

¹⁰ The soldiers began entertaining themselves with the third brother. When he was ordered to stick out his tongue, he quickly did so. Then he bravely held out his hands ¹¹ and courageously said,

¹³ After he had died, the soldiers tortured the fourth one in the same cruel way, ¹⁴ but his final words were,

¹⁵ When the soldiers took the fifth boy and began torturing him, ¹⁶ he looked the king squarely in the eye and said,

²⁰ The mother was the most amazing one of them all, and she deserves a special place in our memory. Although she saw her seven sons die in a single day, she endured it with great courage because she trusted in the Lord. ²¹ She combined womanly emotion with manly courage and spoke words of encouragement to each of her sons in their native language.

³⁹ These words of ridicule made Antiochus so furious that he had the boy tortured even more cruelly than his brothers. ⁴⁰ And so the boy died, with absolute trust in the Lord, never unfaithful for a minute.

⁴¹ Last of all, the mother was put to death.

⁴² But I have said enough about the Jews being tortured and being forced to eat the intestines of sacrificial animals.