Psalm 53

Denunciation of Godlessness

To the leader: according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.

Elisha and the Widow’s Oil

4 Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.”^{(A) 2} Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” ³ He said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels—and not just a few. ⁴ Then go in, shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside.” ⁵ So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring. ⁶ When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” But he said to her, “There are no more.” Then the oil stopped flowing. ⁷ She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest.”^(B)

Feeding the Five Thousand

¹⁰ On their return the apostles told Jesus^[a] all they had done. Then, taking them along, he slipped quietly into a city called Bethsaida.^{(A) 11} When the crowds found out about it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed to be cured.

¹² The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside to lodge and get provisions, for we are here in a deserted place.” ¹³ But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.”^{(B) 14} For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” ¹⁵ They did so and had them all sit down. ¹⁶ And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.^{(C) 17} And all ate and were filled, and what was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.