⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” ¹⁰ He responded, “You have asked a hard thing, yet if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” ¹¹ As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.^{(A) 12} Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.^(B)

Elisha Succeeds Elijah

¹³ He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. ¹⁴ He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water. He said, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah? Where is he?” He struck the water again, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha crossed over.^(C)

¹⁵ When the company of prophets 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.^{(D) 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.”^{(E) 17} But when they urged him to the point of embarrassment, he said, “Send them.” So they sent fifty men who searched for three days but did not find him.^{(F) 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’?”

The Mission of the Seventy-Two

10 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two^[a] others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.^{(A) 2} He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.^{(B) 3} Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.^{(C) 4} Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.^{(D) 5} Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’^{(E) 6} And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. ⁷ Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.^{(F) 8} Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹ cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’^{[b](G) 10} But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’^{[c](H) 12} I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.^(I)

Woes to Unrepentant Cities

¹³ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.^{(J) 14} Indeed, at the judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ¹⁵ And you, Capernaum,

¹⁶ “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”^(L)

The Return of the Seventy-Two

¹⁷ The seventy-two^[d] returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”^{(M) 18} He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.^{(N) 19} Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.^{(O) 20} Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”^(P)