Beginning

The Floating Axe Head

6 Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we are living with you is too small for us. ² Let us go to the Jordan and take from there one beam per man, and let us make for ourselves a place to live there.”

And Elisha said, “Go.”

³ Then one of them said, “Please come with your servants.”

And he said, “I will come.” ⁴ So he went with them.

And they came to the Jordan and cut down trees. ⁵ But as one was cutting down a tree, the axe head fell into the water. He cried, “Ah, master! It was borrowed.”

⁶ Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick, and threw it in there, and he made the iron float. ⁷ So Elisha said, “Pick it up.” And he reached out his hand and took it.

The Blinded Arameans Captured

⁸ Then the king of Aram was fighting against Israel, and he took counsel with his servants, saying, “At such and such a place will be my camp.”

⁹ But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, saying, “Take care not to pass through this place, for the Arameans are marching down there.” ¹⁰ The king of Israel sent word to the place of which the man of God spoke. He warned him and was on his guard there more than once.

¹¹ The mind of the king of Aram was troubled by this, so he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not tell me who among us sides with the king of Israel?”

¹² Then one of his servants said, “No one, my lord, O king. Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”

¹³ He said, “Go and see where he is, so that I may send for him and take him.” And it was told to him, “He is in Dothan.” ¹⁴ So he sent horses, chariots, and a great army there. They came by night and surrounded the city.

¹⁵ When a servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, a force surrounded the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What will we do?”

¹⁶ And he said, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than with them.”

¹⁷ Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, open his eyes and let him see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.

¹⁸ When they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this people with blindness.” And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

¹⁹ Elisha said to them, “This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and let me bring you to the man whom you seek.” But he led them to Samaria.

²⁰ When they entered Samaria, Elisha said, “Lord, open the eyes of these men and let them see.” And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.

²¹ The king of Israel said to Elisha when he saw them, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”

²² And he said, “You shall not kill them. Did you capture with your sword and with your bow those whom you want to kill? Set bread and water before them, and let them eat and drink and then go to their master.” ²³ So he prepared for them a great banquet. When they had eaten and had drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the Aramean raiders did not enter into the land of Israel again.

Ben-Hadad Besieges Samaria

²⁴ After this, Ben-Hadad king of Aram gathered all his army, went up, and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ There was a great famine in Samaria, and they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels^[a] of silver, and one-fourth of a kab^[b] of dove droppings for five shekels^[c] of silver.

²⁶ As the king of Israel was walking across the city wall, a woman cried out to him, “Help, my lord king.”

²⁷ He said, “If the Lord will not help you, how can I help you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ And the king said to her, “What is wrong with you?”

And she said, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son and let us eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.”

³⁰ When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. And since he was walking across the city wall, the people saw that he had sackcloth on his body underneath. ³¹ Then he said, “So may God do to me, and even more, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat stands on his shoulders after today.”

³² Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. The king sent a messenger, but before the messenger came to him, Elisha said to the elders, “Are you aware that this son of a murderer has sent a man to take off my head? When the messenger enters, shut the door and hold it against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?”

³³ And while he was speaking with them, the messenger came down to him, and then the king said, “This calamity is of the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?”

7 Then Elisha said, “Hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord: Tomorrow about this time a measure^[d] of fine flour will be sold for a shekel,^[e] and two measures^[f] of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.”

² Then an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, “If the Lord were to make windows in heaven, could this thing happen?”

And he said, “You will see it with your eyes, but you will not eat from it.”

The Arameans Flee

³ There were four leprous men at the entry of the gate, and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? ⁴ If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. But if we sit here, we die also. Now come, let us fall into the camp of the Arameans. If they spare our lives, we will live, and if they kill us, we will die.”

⁵ So they rose at twilight to enter the camp of the Arameans. When they came to the edge of the camp of the Arameans, there was no one there. ⁶ For the Lord had caused the Aramean camp to hear the sound of chariots, horses, even the sound of a large army, so that they said to one another, “Listen, the king of Israel has hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come against us.” ⁷ So they got up and ran away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys. The camp remained just as it was, and they ran for their lives.

⁸ When these leprous men came to the edge of the camp, they went into one tent. They ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothes, and went and hid them. Then they went back, entered another tent, and carried off things from there and went and hid them.

⁹ Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right today. This is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, we will be found guilty. Let us go now and enter the city and tell the king’s household.”

¹⁰ So they went and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and they told them, “We came to the camp of the Arameans, and there was no one there. There was no sound of a man’s voice, only horses tied, donkeys tied, and the tents as they were.” ¹¹ Then the gatekeepers called out and told the king’s household inside.

¹² The king got up in the night and said to his servants, “I will show you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are starving, so they left the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and get into the city.’ ”

¹³ One of his servants answered, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, since those remaining will suffer the fate of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished already; so let us send them and see.”

¹⁴ So they took two chariots with horses, and the king sent them after the army of the Arameans, saying, “Go and see.” ¹⁵ So they went after them to the Jordan, and the whole way was full of clothes and vessels, which the Arameans had thrown away in their haste. Then the messengers returned and told the king. ¹⁶ Then the people went out and looted the camp of the Arameans. So a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.

¹⁷ The king had appointed the officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge over the gate, and the people trampled him in the gate, and he died, just as the man of God had said when the king came down to him. ¹⁸ Then the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two seahs of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a seah of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow at the gate of Samaria.”

¹⁹ The officer had answered the man of God, “If the Lord should make windows in heaven, could such a thing happen?” And he had said, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” ²⁰ So it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died.

The Shunammite’s Land Restored

8 Then Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Get up and go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you can, for the Lord has called for a famine, and it will come on the land for seven years.” ² So the woman got up and did according to the word of the man of God. She went with her household and sojourned in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

³ At the end of seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines, and she went forth to appeal to the king for her house and her field. ⁴ Now the king was talking with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, “Tell me all the great things that Elisha has done.” ⁵ As he was telling the king how he had restored a dead body to life, the woman whose son he had restored to life started appealing to the king for her house and her land.

Gehazi said, “My lord king, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” ⁶ When the king questioned the woman, she told him.

So the king appointed to her an official, saying, “Restore all that was hers and all the proceeds of the field from the day that she abandoned the land until now.”

Ben-Hadad Is Murdered

⁷ Then Elisha came to Damascus while Ben-Hadad the king of Aram was ill, and he was told, “The man of God has come here.” ⁸ The king said to Hazael, “Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God. Inquire of the Lord through him, saying, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ ”

⁹ So Hazael went to meet him and took a present with him, all sorts of good things from Damascus, forty camel loads. He came and stood before him and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to you, asking, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ ”

¹⁰ And Elisha said to him, “Go, say to him, ‘You will certainly recover,’ but the Lord has shown me that he will certainly die.” ¹¹ Hazael stared at him until he was ashamed. Then the man of God wept.

¹² Hazael said, “Why are you weeping, my lord?”

He said, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their fortresses on fire. You will kill their young men with the sword. You will smash their children and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹³ Hazael said, “What? Is your servant a dog that he should do this great thing?”

And Elisha said, “The Lord has shown me that you will be king over Aram.”

¹⁴ Then he left Elisha and went to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he said, “He told me that you would surely recover.” ¹⁵ But the next day he took a blanket, dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died. And Hazael reigned in his place.

Jehoram, King of Judah^(A)

¹⁶ In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, became king. ¹⁷ He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. ¹⁸ He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, just as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. ¹⁹ Yet the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of His servant David, since He promised to give a lamp to him and his sons perpetually.

²⁰ In his days Edom rebelled against the rule of Judah, and they put a king over themselves. ²¹ So Jehoram crossed over to Zair, all his chariots with him, and he rose at night and struck Edom and the captains of their chariots who had surrounded him. But the people fled to their tents. ²² So Edom has been in rebellion against the rule of Judah until this day. Libnah rebelled at the same time.

²³ The rest of the deeds of Jehoram and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? ²⁴ So Jehoram slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the City of David. Ahaziah his son reigned in his place.

Ahaziah, King of Judah^(B)

²⁵ In the twelfth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, became king. ²⁶ Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king. He reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, king of Israel. ²⁷ He walked in the way of the house of Ahab and did evil in the sight of the Lord, as the house of Ahab did, for he was the son-in-law of the house of Ahab.

²⁸ He went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead, and the Arameans struck Joram. ²⁹ King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramah when he fought against Hazael king of Aram.

And Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel because he was ill.