Old/New Testament
7 Elisha replied, “The Lord says that by this time tomorrow two gallons of flour or four gallons of barley grain will be sold in the markets of Samaria for a dollar!”
2 The officer assisting the king said, “That couldn’t happen if the Lord made windows in the sky!”
But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen, but you won’t be able to buy any of it!”
3 Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. “Why sit here until we die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better; but if they kill us, we would have died anyway.”
5 So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there! 6 (For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and a loud galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us,” they cried out. 7 So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else.)
8 When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it. 9 Finally they said to each other, “This isn’t right. This is wonderful news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! Even if we wait until morning, some terrible calamity will certainly fall upon us; come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”
10 So they went back to the city and told the watchmen what had happened—they had gone out to the Syrian camp and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there was not a soul around. 11 Then the watchmen shouted the news to those in the palace.
12 The king got out of bed and told his officers, “I know what has happened. The Syrians know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields, thinking that we will be lured out of the city. Then they will attack us and make slaves of us and get in.”
13 One of his officers replied, “We’d better send out scouts to see. Let them take five of the remaining horses—if something happens to the animals it won’t be any greater loss than if they stay here and die with the rest of us!”
14 Four chariot horses were found and the king sent out two charioteers to see where the Syrians had gone. 15 They followed a trail of clothing and equipment all the way to the Jordan River—thrown away by the Syrians in their haste. The scouts returned and told the king, 16 and the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So it was true that two gallons of flour and four gallons of barley were sold that day for one dollar, just as the Lord had said!
17 The king appointed his special assistant to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled and killed as the people rushed out. This is what Elisha had predicted on the previous day when the king had come to arrest him, 18 and the prophet had told the king that flour and barley would sell for so little on the following day.
19 The king’s officer had replied, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!”
And the prophet had said, “You will see it happen, but you won’t be able to buy any of it!”
20 And he couldn’t, for the people trampled him to death at the gate!
8 Elisha had told the woman whose son he had brought back to life, “Take your family and move to some other country, for the Lord has called down a famine on Israel that will last for seven years.”
2 So the woman took her family and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years. 3 After the famine ended, she returned to the land of Israel and went to see the king about getting back her house and land. 4 Just as she came in, the king was talking with Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, and saying, “Tell me some stories of the great things Elisha has done.” 5 And Gehazi was telling the king about the time when Elisha brought a little boy back to life. At that very moment, the mother of the boy walked in!
“Oh, sir!” Gehazi exclaimed. “Here is the woman now, and this is her son—the very one Elisha brought back to life!”
6 “Is this true?” the king asked her. And she told him that it was. So he directed one of his officials to see to it that everything she had owned was restored to her, plus the value of any crops that had been harvested during her absence.
7 Afterwards Elisha went to Damascus (the capital of Syria), where King Ben-hadad lay sick. Someone told the king that the prophet had come.
8-9 When the king heard the news, he said to Hazael, “Take a present to the man of God and tell him to ask the Lord whether I will get well again.”
So Hazael took forty camel-loads of the best produce of the land as presents for Elisha and said to him, “Your son Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, has sent me to ask you whether he will recover.”
10 And Elisha replied, “Tell him, ‘Yes.’ But the Lord has shown me that he will surely die!”
11 Elisha stared at Hazael until he became embarrassed, and then Elisha started crying.
12 “What’s the matter, sir?” Hazael asked him.
Elisha replied, “I know the terrible things you will do to the people of Israel: you will burn their forts, kill the young men, dash their babies against the rocks, and rip open the bellies of the pregnant women!”
13 “Am I a dog?” Hazael asked him. “I would never do that sort of thing.”
But Elisha replied, “The Lord has shown me that you are going to be the king of Syria.”
14 When Hazael went back, the king asked him, “What did he tell you?”
And Hazael replied, “He told me that you would recover.”
15 But the next day Hazael took a blanket and dipped it in water and held it over the king’s face until he smothered to death. And Hazael became king instead.
16 King Jehoram, the son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, began his reign during the fifth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel, the son of Ahab. 17 Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years. 18 But he was as wicked as Ahab and the other kings of Israel; he even married one of Ahab’s daughters. 19 Nevertheless, because God had promised his servant David that he would watch over and guide his descendants, he did not destroy Judah.
20 During Jehoram’s reign, the people in Edom revolted from Judah and appointed their own king. 21 King Jehoram[a] tried unsuccessfully to crush the rebellion: he crossed the Jordan River and attacked the city of Zair, but was quickly surrounded by the army of Edom. Under cover of night he broke through their ranks, but his army deserted him and fled. 22 So Edom has maintained its independence to this day. Libnah also rebelled at that time.
23 The rest of the history of King Jehoram is written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 24-25 He died and was buried in the royal cemetery in the City of David—the old section of Jerusalem.
Then his son Ahaziah[b] became the new king during the twelfth year of the reign of King Joram of Israel, the son of Ahab. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, but he reigned only one year in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, the granddaughter of King Omri of Israel. 27 He was an evil king, just as all of King Ahab’s descendants were—for he was related to Ahab by marriage.
28 He joined King Joram of Israel (son of Ahab) in his war against Hazael, the king of Syria, at Ramoth-gilead. King Joram was wounded in the battle, 29 so he went to Jezreel to rest and recover from his wounds. While he was there, King Ahaziah of Judah (son of Jehoram) came to visit him.
9 Meanwhile Elisha had summoned one of the young prophets.
“Get ready to go to Ramoth-gilead,” he told him. “Take this vial of oil with you 2 and find Jehu (the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi). Call him into a private room away from his friends, 3 and pour the oil over his head. Tell him that the Lord has anointed him to be the king of Israel; then run for your life!”
4 So the young prophet did as he was told. When he arrived in Ramoth-gilead, 5 he found Jehu sitting around with the other army officers.
“I have a message for you, sir,” he said.
“For which one of us?” Jehu asked.
“For you,” he replied.
6 So Jehu left the others and went into the house, and the young man poured the oil over his head and said, “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘I anoint you king of the Lord’s people, Israel. 7 You are to destroy the family of Ahab; you will avenge the murder of my prophets and of all my other people who were killed by Jezebel. 8 The entire family of Ahab must be wiped out—every male, no matter who. 9 I will destroy the family of Ahab as I destroyed the families of Jeroboam (son of Nebat) and of Baasha (son of Ahijah). 10 Dogs shall eat Ahab’s wife Jezebel at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.’”
Then he opened the door and ran.
11 Jehu went back to his friends and one of them asked him, “What did that crazy fellow want? Is everything all right?”
“You know very well who he was and what he wanted,” Jehu replied.
12 “No, we don’t,” they said. “Tell us.”
So he told them what the man had said and that he had been anointed king of Israel!
13 They quickly carpeted the bare steps with their coats and blew a trumpet, shouting, “Jehu is king!”
14 That is how Jehu (son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi) rebelled against King Joram. (King Joram had been with the army at Ramoth-gilead, defending Israel against the forces of King Hazael of Syria. 15 But he had returned to Jezreel to recover from his wounds.)
“Since you want me to be king,” Jehu told the men who were with him, “don’t let anyone escape to Jezreel to report what we have done.”
16 Then Jehu jumped into a chariot and rode to Jezreel himself to find King Joram, who was lying there wounded. (King Ahaziah of Judah was there too, for he had gone to visit him.) 17 The watchman on the Tower of Jezreel saw Jehu and his company approaching and shouted, “Someone is coming.”
“Send out a rider and find out if he is friend or foe,” King Joram shouted back. 18 So a soldier rode out to meet Jehu.
“The king wants to know whether you are friend or foe,” he demanded. “Do you come in peace?”
Jehu replied, “What do you know about peace? Get behind me!”
The watchman called out to the king that the messenger had met them but was not returning. 19 So the king sent out a second rider. He rode up to them and demanded in the name of the king to know whether their intentions were friendly or not.
Jehu answered, “What do you know about friendliness? Get behind me!”
20 “He isn’t returning either!” the watchman exclaimed. “It must be Jehu, for he is driving so furiously.”
21 “Quick! Get my chariot ready!” King Joram commanded.
Then he and King Ahaziah of Judah rode out to meet Jehu. They met him at the field of Naboth, 22 and King Joram demanded, “Do you come as a friend, Jehu?”
Jehu replied, “How can there be friendship as long as the evils of your mother Jezebel are all around us?”
23 Then King Joram reined the chariot horses around and fled, shouting to King Ahaziah, “There is treachery, Ahaziah! Treason!”
24 Then Jehu drew his bow with his full strength and shot Joram between the shoulders; and the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank down dead in his chariot.
25 Jehu said to Bidkar, his assistant, “Throw him into the field of Naboth, for once when you and I were riding along behind his father Ahab, the Lord revealed this prophecy to me: 26 ‘I will repay him here on Naboth’s property for the murder of Naboth and his sons.’ So throw him out on Naboth’s field, just as the Lord said.”
27 Meanwhile, King Ahaziah of Judah had fled along the road to Beth-haggan. Jehu rode after him, shouting, “Shoot him too.”
So they shot him in his chariot at the place where the road climbs to Gur, near Ibleam. He was able to go on as far as Megiddo, but died there. 28 His officials took him by chariot to Jerusalem where they buried him in the royal cemetery. 29 (Ahaziah’s reign over Judah had begun in the twelfth year[c] of the reign of King Joram of Israel.)
30 When Jezebel heard that Jehu had come to Jezreel, she painted her eyelids and fixed her hair and sat at a window. 31 When Jehu entered the gate of the palace, she shouted at him, “How are you today, you murderer! You son of a Zimri who murdered his master!”
32 He looked up and saw her at the window and shouted, “Who is on my side?” And two or three eunuchs looked out at him.
33 “Throw her down!” he yelled.
So they threw her out the window, and her blood spattered against the wall and on the horses; and she was trampled by the horses’ hoofs.
34 Then Jehu went into the palace for lunch. Afterwards he said, “Someone go and bury this cursed woman, for she is the daughter of a king.”
35 But when they went out to bury her, they found only her skull, her feet, and her hands.
36 When they returned and told him, he remarked, “That is just what the Lord said would happen. He told Elijah the prophet that dogs would eat her flesh 37 and that her body would be scattered like manure upon the field, so that no one could tell whose it was.”
1 1-2 Before anything else existed,[a] there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. 3 He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. 4 Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. 5 His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it.
6-7 God sent John the Baptist as a witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is the true Light. 8 John himself was not the Light; he was only a witness to identify it.
9 Later on, the one who is the true Light arrived to shine on everyone coming into the world.
10 But although he made the world, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. 11-12 Even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive him. But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them.[b] 13 All those who believe this are reborn!—not a physical rebirth[c] resulting from human passion or plan—but from the will of God.
14 And Christ[d] became a human being and lived here on earth among us and was full of loving forgiveness and truth. And some of us have seen his glory—the glory of the only Son of the heavenly Father!
15 John pointed him out to the people, telling the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming who is greater by far than I am—for he existed long before I did!’” 16 We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us—blessing upon blessing heaped upon us! 17 For Moses gave us only the Law with its rigid demands and merciless justice, while Jesus Christ brought us loving forgiveness as well. 18 No one has ever actually seen God, but, of course, his only Son has, for he is the companion of the Father and has told us all about him.
19 The Jewish leaders[e] sent priests and assistant priests from Jerusalem to ask John whether he claimed to be the Messiah.
20 He denied it flatly. “I am not the Christ,” he said.
21 “Well then, who are you?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”
“No,” he replied.
“Are you the Prophet?”[f]
“No.”
22 “Then who are you? Tell us, so we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you have to say for yourself?”
23 He replied, “I am a voice from the barren wilderness, shouting as Isaiah prophesied, ‘Get ready for the coming of the Lord!’”
24-25 Then those who were sent by the Pharisees asked him, “If you aren’t the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet, what right do you have to baptize?”
26 John told them, “I merely baptize with[g] water, but right here in the crowd is someone you have never met, 27 who will soon begin his ministry among you, and I am not even fit to be his slave.”
28 This incident took place at Bethany, a village on the other side of the Jordan River where John was baptizing.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.