Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Poisoned Stew is Purified

³⁸ Elisha returned to Gilgal during a time of famine in the land. While the Guild of Prophets were having a meal^[a] with him, he instructed his attendant, “Put a large pot on the fire and boil some stew for the Guild of Prophets.” ³⁹ Somebody went out into the fields to grab some herbs, found a wild vine, and gathered a lap full of wild gourds, which he came and sliced up into the stew pot, but nobody else knew.

⁴⁰ When they served the men, they began to eat the stew. But they cried out, “That pot of stew is deadly, you man of God!” So they couldn’t eat the stew.

⁴¹ But he replied, “Bring me some flour.” He tossed it into the pot and said, “Serve the people so they can eat.” Then there was nothing harmful in the pot.

³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi,^[a] have something to eat.”

³² But he told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ So the disciples began to say to one another, “No one has brought him anything to eat, have they?”

³⁴ Jesus told them, “My food is doing the will of the one who sent me and completing his work. ³⁵ You say, don’t you, ‘In four more months the harvest will begin?’ Look, I tell you, open your eyes and observe that the fields are ready^[b] for harvesting now! ³⁶ The one who harvests is already receiving his wages and gathering a crop for eternal life, so that the one who sows and the one who harvests may rejoice together. ³⁷ In this respect the saying is true: ‘One person sows, and another person harvests.’^{[c] 38} I have sent you to harvest what you have not worked for. Others have worked, and you have adopted their work as your own.”