Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Elisha and the Poisoned Food

³⁸ When Elisha went back to Gilgal, there was a famine in the country. ⌞One day,⌟ while the disciples of the prophets were meeting with him, he told his servant, “Put a large pot on the fire, and cook some stew for the disciples of the prophets.”

³⁹ One of them went into the field to gather vegetables and found a wild vine. He filled his clothes with wild gourds. Then he cut them into the pot of stew without knowing what they were. ⁴⁰ They dished out the food for the men to eat. As they were eating the stew, they cried out, “There’s death in the pot, man of God!” So they couldn’t eat it.

⁴¹ Elisha said, “Bring some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Dish it out for the people to eat.” Then there was nothing harmful in the pot.

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

³² Jesus told them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

³³ The disciples asked each other, “Did someone bring him something to eat?”

³⁴ Jesus told them, “My food is to do what the one who sent me wants me to do and to finish the work he has given me.

³⁵ “Don’t you say, ‘In four more months the harvest will be here’? I’m telling you to look and see that the fields are ready to be harvested. ³⁶ The person who harvests the crop is already getting paid. He is gathering grain for eternal life. So the person who plants the grain and the person who harvests it are happy together. ³⁷ In this respect the saying is true: ‘One person plants, and another person harvests.’ ³⁸ I have sent you to harvest a crop you have not worked for. Other people have done the hard work, and you have followed them in their work.”