Beginning
The Miracle of the Ax Head
6 One day the Guild of Prophets told Elisha, “Notice how the place where we are living is too small for us. 2 Let’s go to the Jordan River,[a] fashion some rafters,[b] and build a place for us so we can live there.”
So he said, “Go!”
3 Someone asked, “Would you be willing to come with your servants?”
“I’m willing,” he replied. 4 So he accompanied them, and when they came to the Jordan River,[c] they cut down some trees.
5 It happened that as one of them was felling a beam, his axe head fell into the water. He cried out, “Oh no! Master! The axe was on loan to me!”
6 The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he was shown the place, he cut off a branch, tossed it there, and made the iron axe head float. 7 Then Elisha said, “Pick it up!” So the young man reached out and picked it[d] up.
The Arameans Attack
8 Eventually the king of Aram went to war against Israel, taking counsel with his advisors and concluding, “In such and such a place I’ll build my encampment.”
9 So the man of God sent a message[e] to the king of Israel, warning him, “Keep an eye on that area, because the Arameans are going to be there!” 10 The king of Israel confirmed the matter[f] about which the man of God had warned him. Having been forewarned, he was able to protect himself there on more than one or two occasions.
11 The king of Aram flew into a rage over this, so he called in his advisors and asked them, “Will you please tell me which of us has joined the king of Israel?”
12 “No, your majesty,” one of his servants said. “Elisha the prophet, who lives in Israel, tells the king of Israel what you talk about in your bedroom!”
13 So the king[g] ordered, “Go and discover where he is, so I may send men[h] to take him into custody.”
Later somebody told him, “Look! He’s in Dothan!”
14 So the king of Aram[i] sent out horses, chariots, and an elite force, and they arrived during the night and surrounded the city. 15 Meanwhile, the attendant to the man of God got up early in the morning and went outside, and there were the elite forces, surrounding the city, accompanied by horses and chariots! So Elisha’s attendant cried out to him, “Oh no! Master! What will we do!?”
16 Elisha[j] replied, “Stop being afraid, because there are more with us than with them!” 17 Then Elisha prayed, asking the Lord, “Please make him able to really see!” And so when the Lord enabled the young man to see, he looked, and there was the mountain, filled with horses and fiery chariots surrounding Elisha!
18 When the army approached him, Elisha spoke to the Lord, asking him, “Lord, I’m asking you please to afflict this group of people with blindness!” So he afflicted them with blindness, just as Elisha had asked.
19 Then Elisha told the army, “This isn’t the way, and this isn’t the city! Follow me, and I’ll bring you to the man you’re seeking.” Then he led them to Samaria. 20 When they arrived in Samaria, Elisha asked the Lord, “Enable them to see again.” So the Lord did so, and there they were—right in the middle of Samaria!
21 When the king of Israel saw Elisha, he asked him, “Shall I execute them, my father?”
22 But he replied, “No! You’re not to kill them! Would you execute those whom you’ve taken captive at the point of a sword or with your bow? Give them food and water so they can eat and drink. Then send them back to their master!” 23 So he prepared a large festival for them, and when they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them back to their master, and marauding gangs of Arameans never came into the territory of Israel again.
Ben-hadad Attacks Samaria
24 Some time later, King Ben-hadad from Aram mustered his army, invaded the land,[k] and attacked Samaria 25 until there was a great famine throughout Samaria. The siege lasted until a donkey’s head cost[l] 80 silver coins[m] and one quarter of a unit[n] of dove’s dung cost[o] five silver coins.[p]
26 While the king of Israel was walking along the city[q] wall, a woman cried out to him. “Help me, your majesty!”[r] she said.
27 He replied, “No! Since the Lord won’t give you victory, how will I be able to deliver you? From the threshing floor? From the wine press?” 28 Then the king asked her, “What’s bothering[s] you?”
She said, “This woman told me, ‘Give up your son, and we’ll eat him today, and we’ll eat my son tomorrow.’” 29 So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day, I told her, ‘Give me your son so we can eat him!’ But she has hidden her son!”
30 When the king heard what the woman said, he ripped his garments as he continued walking along the city[t] wall. As the people watched, all of a sudden they noticed he was wearing sackcloth underneath his clothes, inside next to his flesh! 31 He said, “May God do to me—and more also!—if the head of Shaphat’s son Elisha remains on his shoulders[u] today!”
32 Meanwhile, Elisha was sitting in his house, along with the elders, when the king[v] sent a man to kill him,[w] but before the messenger arrived, Elisha[x] told the elders, “Are you watching how this descendant of murderers has ordered my head be cut off? Look, when the messenger arrives, shut the door and hold it to shut them out! Don’t you hear the sound of his master’s feet right behind him?”
33 While he was still talking with them, the messenger arrived to see him and delivered the king’s message to Elisha,[y] “Look! This evil has come from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord anymore?”
Elisha Predicts Deliverance the Next Day
7 So Elisha responded, “Listen to this message from the Lord! ‘This is what the Lord says: “At about this time tomorrow, in Samaria’s city gate, a seah[z] of finely ground flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel.”’”
2 But the royal attendant on whom the king depended responded to the man of God: “Look here! Even if the Lord were to open a window in the sky, how could this happen?”
He replied, “No, you look! You’ll see it with your eyes, but you won’t eat any of it!”
The Arameans Flee
3 Now there happened to be four lepers who were at that very moment at the entrance to the city gate. As they were talking with one another, they said, “Why are we sitting here waiting to die? 4 If we tell ourselves, ‘Let’s remain in the city,’ we’ll die there since there’s famine in the city. But if we sit here, we’ll die, too. So let’s go over[aa] to the Arameans! If they spare our lives, we’ll live, and if they kill us…we’re dying anyway!”[ab]
5 So they got up at dusk and went out to the Aramean encampment. But when they arrived at the outskirts of the Aramean encampment, there was no one there! 6 The Lord had made the Aramean army hear the sounds of chariots, horses, and a large army, so they told one another, “Look! The king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the Egyptians to come attack us!” 7 So the Arameans[ac] got up and ran away in the gathering darkness. They left behind their tents, horses, and donkeys just as they were—and fled for their lives!
8 When the lepers arrived at the outskirts of the encampment, they entered one tent and ate and drank. Then they carried off from there some silver, gold, and clothes, and went out and hid them. After this, they returned, entered another tent, raided it, and went and hid all of that,[ad] too! 9 But then they told each other, “We’re not doing the right thing. This is a day of good news, but if we keep quiet until morning, we’re sure to be punished! So let’s leave and go tell the king’s household!” 10 So they left, called out to the city gatekeepers, and reported to them: “We went out to the Aramean encampment, and there was nobody there! Not even the sound of men—only horses and donkeys tied up, and tents left just as they were!”
11 The gatekeepers announced the report to the king’s attendants, 12 so the king got up in the middle of the night and ordered his servants: “Let me explain what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we’re hungry, so they’ve left their encampment to conceal themselves in the surrounding fields. They’re telling themselves, ‘When they come out of the city, we’ll capture them alive and enter the city!’”
13 One of his attendants suggested, “Please, let’s take five of the remaining horses, since those who remain here will end up like the rest of Israel, which has already died, and we’ll send them out to look.” 14 So they took two chariots and horses, and the king sent them out after the Aramean army with the orders, “Go and look!”
The Prophecy is Fulfilled
15 They went out in the direction of the Jordan River,[ae] and the entire roadway was strewn with clothes and equipment that the Arameans had abandoned in their haste to leave![af] So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 At this, the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. At that time, a seah[ag] of finely ground flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, in accordance with the Lord’s message.
17 Meanwhile, the king appointed the same royal attendant on whom he depended[ah] to take control of the city gate, but the people trampled him to death in the gate, just as the man of God had told the king when the king came down to him. 18 It happened just as the man of God had spoken to the king:
“At about this time tomorrow, in Samaria’s city gate, a seah[ai] of finely ground flour will sell for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel.”
19 But the royal attendant on whom the king depended responded to the man of God: “Look here! Even if the Lord were to make a window in the sky, how could this happen?”
He replied, “No, you look! You’ll see it with your eyes, but you won’t eat any of it!”[aj]
20 And so it happened to him, because the people trampled him in the city gate and he died.
The Shunammite’s Land is Restored
8 Meanwhile, Elisha urged the woman whose son he had restored to life, “You must get up and leave with your household to go live wherever you can, because the Lord has called for a famine, and it’s going to come over the land for seven years.” 2 So the woman followed the instructions given to her by the man of God, and she went to the territory of the Philistines to live for seven years with her household. 3 At the end of the seven years, the woman returned from the territory of the Philistines and went to the king in order to file an appeal regarding her house and her grain field.
4 The king was talking with Gehazi, the attendant of the man of God. He had asked Gehazi, “Please tell me about all of the great things that Elisha has done.” 5 Just as he was telling the king about Elisha’s having restored the dead to life, the woman whose son had been restored arrived and appealed to the king for her house and her land!
Gehazi told the king, “Your majesty, this is the woman! And here’s her son, whom Elisha restored to life!”
6 The king consulted with the woman, who related the story. So the king appointed a court official to represent her and ordered him: “Restore to her everything that belonged to her, including all of the produce that her fields yielded from the day she left the land until now.”
The Murder of King Ben-hadad of Aram
7 Later on, Elisha traveled to Damascus. King Ben-hadad of Aram was ill, but someone informed him, “The man of God has come here!”
8 So the king told Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go meet the man of God. Inquire of the Lord through him and ask, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”
9 So Hazael went out to meet with him and took a gift with him—40 camel loads filled with samples of everything good in Damascus. He approached the man of God[ak] and said, “Your son King Ben-hadad from Aram has sent me to you to ask you, ‘Will I recover from this sickness?’”
10 But Elisha told him, “Go tell him, ‘You will certainly recover,’ but the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die.” 11 Then Elisha[al] looked steadily at Hazael[am] until Hazael grew ashamed, and then the man of God began to cry.
12 “Why are you crying, sir?” Hazael asked.
“Because I know the evil that you’re about to bring on the Israelis,” he replied. “You’ll burn down their fortified cities, execute their young men with swords, dash to pieces their little ones, and you’ll tear open their pregnant women!”
13 But Hazael responded, “What? Who am I, your servant, that I should do such a horrible thing?”
But Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”
14 So he left Elisha and returned to his master, who asked him, “What did Elisha tell you?”
He replied, “He told me that you would certainly get better.”
15 But the very next day, Hazael[an] grabbed a thick covering, soaked it in water, and spread it over the king’s[ao] face, and he suffocated.[ap] Then Hazael succeeded Ben-hadad[aq] as king.
Jehoram Comes to the Throne of Judah
16 Sometime during the fifth year of the reign of Ahab’s son Joram, king of Israel (while Jehoshaphat was still ruling as king of Judah), Jehoshaphat’s son Jehoram ascended to the throne of Judah. 17 He was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years. 18 He lived his life like the kings of Israel did, following the example of Ahab’s household when he married Ahab’s daughter and practiced what was evil in the Lord’s presence.[ar] 19 But the Lord remained unwilling to destroy Judah for the sake of his servant David, since he had promised to keep[as] David’s lamp burning brightly through his descendants every day.
20 During Jehoram’s lifetime, Edom rebelled from Judah’s hegemony and appointed a king to rule over themselves. 21 Then Joram crossed over to Zair, along with all of his chariots. At night he attacked the Edomites who had surrounded him and the commanders of his chariots, but the army[at] ran away to their tents. 22 Edom remains in rebellion against Judah to this day, and Libnah revolted at the same time. 23 The rest of the official[au] acts of Joram, along with everything else that he did, are recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah,[av] are they not?
Ahaziah Succeeds Jehoram
24 After Jehoram was laid to rest with his ancestors in the City of David, his son Ahaziah replaced him as king. 25 Jehoram’s son Ahaziah began to reign as king of Judah during the twelfth year of the reign of Ahab’s son Joram, king of Israel. 26 Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for one year.
His mother was named Athaliah. She was the granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel. 27 Ahaziah lived his life following the example of Ahab’s household, practicing what the Lord considered to be evil, just like the household of Ahab, because he was a son-in-law to Ahab’s household. 28 He joined Ahab’s son Joram in an attack on King Hazael of Aram at Ramoth-gilead, and that’s where the Arameans wounded Joram. 29 Then King Joram retreated to Jezreel to recover from the wounds that the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramah during the battle against King Hazael of Aram. Jehoram’s son Ahaziah, king of Judah, went to visit Ahab’s son Joram in Jezreel because Joram was sick.[aw]
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