One day the wife of a man from the guild of prophets called out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead. You well know what a good man he was, devoted to GOD. And now the man to whom he was in debt is on his way to collect by taking my two children as slaves.”
Elisha said, “I wonder how I can be of help. Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Well, I do have a little oil.”
“Here’s what you do,” said Elisha. “Go up and down the street and borrow jugs and bowls from all your neighbors. And not just a few—all you can get. Then come home and lock the door behind you, you and your sons. Pour oil into each container; when each is full, set it aside.”
She did what he said. She locked the door behind her and her sons; as they brought the containers to her, she filled them. When all the jugs and bowls were full, she said to one of her sons, “Another jug, please.”
He said, “That’s it. There are no more jugs.”
Then the oil stopped.
She went and told the story to the man of God. He said, “Go sell the oil and make good on your debts. Live, both you and your sons, on what’s left.”
* * *
One day Elisha passed through Shunem. A leading lady of the town talked him into stopping for a meal. And then it became his custom: Whenever he passed through, he stopped by for a meal.
“I’m certain,” said the woman to her husband, “that this man who stops by with us all the time is a holy man of God. Why don’t we add on a small room upstairs and furnish it with a bed and desk, chair and lamp, so that when he comes by he can stay with us?”
And so it happened that the next time Elisha came by he went to the room and lay down for a nap.
Then he said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the Shunammite woman I want to see her.” He called her and she came to him.
Through Gehazi Elisha said, “You’ve gone far beyond the call of duty in taking care of us; what can we do for you? Do you have a request we can bring to the king or to the commander of the army?”
She replied, “Nothing. I’m secure and satisfied in my family.”
Elisha conferred with Gehazi: “There’s got to be something we can do for her. But what?”
Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is an old man.”
“Call her in,” said Elisha. He called her and she stood at the open door.
Elisha said to her, “This time next year you’re going to be nursing an infant son.”
“O my master, O Holy Man,” she said, “don’t play games with me, teasing me with such fantasies!”
The woman conceived. A year later, just as Elisha had said, she had a son.
The child grew up. One day he went to his father, who was working with the harvest hands, complaining, “My head, my head!”
His father ordered a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
The servant took him in his arms and carried him to his mother. He lay on her lap until noon and died.
She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut him in alone, and left.
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