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The Blue Letter Bible

2 Kings 4 :: New Living Translation (NLT)

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Elisha Helps a Poor Widow
(cf. 1Ki 17:14–16 )

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:1

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:1 - One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared the LORD. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:2

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:2 - “What can I do to help you?” Elisha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
“Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:3

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:3 - And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:4

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:4 - Then go into your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:5

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:5 - So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:6

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:6 - Soon every container was full to the brim!
“Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons.
“There aren’t any more!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:7

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:7 - When she told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”
Elisha and the Woman from Shunem
(cf. 1Ki 17:17–24 )

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:8

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:8 - One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal. After that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:9

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:9 - She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:10

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:10 - Let’s build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:11

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:11 - One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and he went up to this upper room to rest.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:12

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:12 - He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from Shunem I want to speak to her.” When she appeared,

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:13

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:13 - Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘We appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you? Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?’”
“No,” she replied, “my family takes good care of me.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:14

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:14 - Later Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can we do for her?”
Gehazi replied, “She doesn’t have a son, and her husband is an old man.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:15

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:15 - “Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway,

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:16

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:16 - “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms!”
“No, my lord!” she cried. “O man of God, don’t deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:17

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:17 - But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:18

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:18 - One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:19

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:19 - Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!”
His father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:20

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:20 - So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:21

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:21 - She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and left him there.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:22

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:22 - She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the man of God and come right back.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:23

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:23 - “Why go today?” he asked. “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Sabbath.”
But she said, “It will be all right.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:24

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:24 - So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Don’t slow down unless I tell you to.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:25

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:25 - As she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehazi, “Look, the woman from Shunem is coming.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:26

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:26 - Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’”
“Yes,” the woman told Gehazi, “everything is fine.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:27

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:27 - But when she came to the man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gehazi began to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but the LORD has not told me what it is.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:28

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:28 - Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? And didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me and get my hopes up’?”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:29

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:29 - Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Get ready to travel[fn]; take my staff and go! Don’t talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:30

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:30 - But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the LORD lives and you yourself live, I won’t go home unless you go with me.” So Elisha returned with her.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:31

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:31 - Gehazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him, “The child is still dead.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:32

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:32 - When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet’s bed.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:33

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:33 - He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the LORD.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:34

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:34 - Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again!

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:35

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:35 - Elisha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:36

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:36 - Then Elisha summoned Gehazi. “Call the child’s mother!” he said. And when she came in, Elisha said, “Here, take your son!”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:37

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:37 - She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.
Miracles during a Famine

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:38

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:38 - Elisha now returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. One day as the group of prophets was seated before him, he said to his servant, “Put a large pot on the fire, and make some stew for the rest of the group.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:39

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:39 - One of the young men went out into the field to gather herbs and came back with a pocketful of wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into the pot without realizing they were poisonous.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:40

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:40 - Some of the stew was served to the men. But after they had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Man of God, there’s poison in this stew!” So they would not eat it.

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:41

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:41 - Elisha said, “Bring me some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now it’s all right; go ahead and eat.” And then it did not harm them.
(cf. Mat 14:13–21; 15:32–39 )

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:42

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:42 - One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought the man of God a sack of fresh grain and twenty loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Elisha said, “Give it to the people so they can eat.”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:43

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:43 - “What?” his servant exclaimed. “Feed a hundred people with only this?”
But Elisha repeated, “Give it to the people so they can eat, for this is what the LORD says: Everyone will eat, and there will even be some left over!”

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Unchecked Copy Box 2Ki 4:44

Unchecked Copy Box2Ki 4:44 - And when they gave it to the people, there was plenty for all and some left over, just as the LORD had promised.
See the NLT Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).
NLT Footnotes
Hebrew Bind up your loins.
NLT

Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Full copyright information is provided here. Visit the New Living Translation website.

For more information on this translation, see the NLT Preface.

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2 Kings Chapter 4 — Additional Translations:

King James Version New King James Version New International Version English Standard Version Christian Standard Bible New American Standard Bible 2020 New American Standard Bible 1995 Legacy Standard Bible Amplified Bible New English Translation Revised Standard Version American Standard Version Young's Literal Translation Darby Translation Webster's Bible Hebrew Names Version Latin Vulgate Westminster Leningrad Codex Septuagint Smith Van Dyck Arabic Bible Open New Arabic Version Brenton's English Septuagint Reina Valera 1909 Reina-Valera 1960 Bible in Basic English Chinese Traditional Union Espanol Moderno Korean Holy Bible Louis Segond German Luther Russian Synodal Translation Sagradas Escrituras