Elisha and the Widow's Oil

4 Now the wife of one of the ^(A)sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, ^(B)but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”

³ And ^(A)the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”

^25 (A)And since he could not pay, his master ordered him ^(B)to be sold, with his wife and ^(C)children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

² For there were those who said, “With our sons and our daughters, we are many. So let us get grain, that we may eat and keep alive.” ³ There were also those who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to get grain because of the famine.” ⁴ And there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for ^(A)the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. ⁵ Now ^(B)our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children are as their children. Yet ^(C)we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but it is not in our power to help it, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

⁵ And from the throne came a voice saying,

^39 (A)“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: ⁴⁰ he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. ^41 (B)Then he shall go out from you, ^(C)he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return ^(D)to the possession of his fathers.

² But for you ^(A)who fear my name, ^(B)the sun ^(C)of righteousness shall rise ^(D)with healing in its wings. You shall go out ^(E)leaping like calves from the stall.

¹³ For ^(A)judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.