2 Kings 2:15-25

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

¹⁵ When the company of prophets^[a] who were at Jericho saw him at a distance, they declared, ‘The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.’ They came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. ¹⁶ They said to him, ‘See now, we have fifty strong men among your servants; please let them go and seek your master; it may be that the spirit of the Lord has caught him up and thrown him down on some mountain or into some valley.’ He responded, ‘No, do not send them.’ ¹⁷ But when they urged him until he was ashamed, he said, ‘Send them.’ So they sent fifty men who searched for three days but did not find him. ¹⁸ When they came back to him (he had remained at Jericho), he said to them, ‘Did I not say to you, Do not go?’

Elisha Performs Miracles

¹⁹ Now the people of the city said to Elisha, ‘The location of this city is good, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.’ ²⁰ He said, ‘Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.’ So they brought it to him. ²¹ Then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it, and said, ‘Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.’ ²² So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

²³ He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, ‘Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!’ ²⁴ When he turned round and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. ²⁵ From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria.