ELISHA


Taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (C) 1978 by the New 
York Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

1KI 19:16  Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint 
Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet.

19  So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was 
plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth 
pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him.

21  So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and 
slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave 
it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became 
his attendant.

2KI 2:1  When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a 
whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.

2  Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here; the LORD has sent me to Bethel." But 
Elisha said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave 
you." So they went down to Bethel.

3  The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, "Do 
you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?" "Yes, 
I know," Elisha replied, "but do not speak of it."

4  Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here, Elisha; the LORD has sent me to 
Jericho." And he replied, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I 
will not leave you." So they went to Jericho.

5  The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, 
"Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?" 
"Yes, I know," he replied, "but do not speak of it."

6  Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here; the LORD has sent me to the 
Jordan." And he replied, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I 
will not leave you." So the two of them walked on.

7  Fifty men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, 
facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan.

8  Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The 
water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed 
over on dry ground.

9  When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me, what can I do 
for you before I am taken from you?" "Let me inherit a double portion of 
your spirit," Elisha replied.

10  "You have asked a difficult thing," Elijah said, "yet if you see me 
when I am taken from you, it will be yours--otherwise not."

11  As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of 
fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah 
went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

12  Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots and 
horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his 
own clothes and tore them apart.

13  He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and 
stood on the bank of the Jordan.

14  Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water 
with it. "Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" he asked. When he 
struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed 
over.

15  The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, "The 
spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha." And they went to meet him and bowed 
to the ground before him.

16  "Look," they said, "we your servants have fifty able men. Let them go 
and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has picked him up 
and set him down on some mountain or in some valley." "No," Elisha replied, 
"do not send them."

17  But they persisted until he was too ashamed to refuse. So he said, 
"Send them." And they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did 
not find him.

18  When they returned to Elisha, who was staying in Jericho, he said to 
them, "Didn't I tell you not to go?"

19  The men of the city said to Elisha, "Look, our lord, this town is well 
situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is 
unproductive."

20  "Bring me a new bowl," he said, "and put salt in it." So they brought 
it to him.

21  Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, 
"This is what the LORD says: 'I have healed this water. Never again will it 
cause death or make the land unproductive.'"

22  And the water has remained wholesome to this day, according to the word 
Elisha had spoken.

23  From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, 
some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you 
baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!"

24  He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the 
name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two 
of the youths.

25  And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

3:11  But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there no prophet of the LORD here, that we 
may inquire of the LORD through him?" An officer of the king of Israel 
answered, "Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the 
hands of Elijah."

13  Elisha said to the king of Israel, "What do we have to do with each 
other? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother." 
"No," the king of Israel answered, "because it was the LORD who called us 
three kings together to hand us over to Moab."

14  Elisha said, "As surely as the LORD Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I 
did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would 
not look at you or even notice you.

4:1  The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to 
Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the 
LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."

2  Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in 
your house?" "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a 
little oil."

3  Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't 
ask for just a few.

4  Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into 
all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."

5  She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They 
brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.

6  When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another 
one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped 
flowing.

7  She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay 
your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."

8  One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who 
urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to 
eat.

16  "About this time next year," Elisha said, "you will hold a son in your 
arms." "No, my lord," she objected. "Don't mislead your servant, O man of 
God!"

17  But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time 
she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

21  She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the 
door and went out.

22  She called her husband and said, "Please send me one of the servants 
and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return."

23  "Why go to him today?" he asked. "It's not the New Moon or the 
Sabbath." "It's all right," she said.

25  So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When he saw 
her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, "Look! 
There's the Shunammite!

26  Run to meet her and ask her, 'Are you all right? Is your husband all 
right? Is your child all right?'" "Everything is all right," she said.

27  When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his 
feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, "Leave 
her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me 
and has not told me why."

28  "Did I ask you for a son, my lord?" she said. "Didn't I tell you, 
'Don't raise my hopes'?"

29  Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff 
in your hand and run. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone 
greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy's face."

30  But the child's mother said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you 
live, I will not leave you." So he got up and followed her.

32  When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his 
couch.

33  He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD.

34  Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to 
eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy's body 
grew warm.

35  Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got 
on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven 
times and opened his eyes.

36  Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call the Shunammite." And he did. 
When she came, he said, "Take your son."

37  She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took 
her son and went out.

38  Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While 
the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, 
"Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men."

40  The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they 
cried out, "O man of God, there is death in the pot!" And they could not 
eat it.

41  Elisha said, "Get some flour." He put it into the pot and said, "Serve 
it to the people to eat." And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

42  A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves 
of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of 
new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.

43  "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But 
Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD 
says: 'They will eat and have some left over.'"

44  Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, 
according to the word of the LORD.

5:3  She said to her mistress, "If only my master would see the prophet who 
is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy."

8  When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his 
robes, he sent him this message: "Why have you torn your robes? Have the 
man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel."

9  So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of 
Elisha's house.

10  Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, "Go, wash yourself seven times 
in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."

11  But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely 
come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his 
hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

12  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of 
the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" So he 
turned and went off in a rage.

13  Naaman's servants went to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had 
told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, 
then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!"

14  So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the 
man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like 
that of a young boy.

15  Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He 
stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the 
world except in Israel. Please accept now a gift from your servant."

16  The prophet answered, "As surely as the LORD lives, whom I serve, I 
will not accept a thing." And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.

17  "If you will not," said Naaman, "please let me, your servant, be given 
as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never 
again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD.

18  But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my 
master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm 
and I bow there also--when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD 
forgive your servant for this."

19  "Go in peace," Elisha said. After Naaman had traveled some distance,

20  Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said to himself, "My 
master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what 
he brought. As surely as the LORD lives, I will run after him and get 
something from him."

25  Then he went in and stood before his master Elisha. "Where have you 
been, Gehazi?" Elisha asked. "Your servant didn't go anywhere," Gehazi 
answered.

26  But Elisha said to him, "Was not my spirit with you when the man got 
down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money, or to 
accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and 
maidservants?

27  Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever." 
Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence and he was leprous, as white as 
snow.

6:1  The company of the prophets said to Elisha, "Look, the place where we 
meet with you is too small for us.

6  The man of God asked, "Where did it fall?" When he showed him the place, 
Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float.

12  "None of us, my lord the king," said one of his officers, "but Elisha, 
the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you 
speak in your bedroom."

17  And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD 
opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses 
and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

18  As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, "Strike 
these people with blindness." So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha 
had asked.

19  Elisha told them, "This is not the road and this is not the city. 
Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for." And he led 
them to Samaria.

20  After they entered the city, Elisha said, "LORD, open the eyes of these 
men so they can see." Then the LORD opened their eyes and they looked, and 
there they were, inside Samaria.

21  When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, "Shall I kill them, 
my father? Shall I kill them?"

31  He said, "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of 
Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!"

32  Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with 
him. The king sent a messenger ahead, but before he arrived, Elisha said to 
the elders, "Don't you see how this murderer is sending someone to cut off 
my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold it shut 
against him. Is not the sound of his master's footsteps behind him?"

33  While he was still talking to them, the messenger came down to him. And 
the king said, "This disaster is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the 
LORD any longer?"

7:1  Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: 
About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell for a shekel and two 
seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria."

2  The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, 
"Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could 
this happen?" "You will see it with your own eyes," answered Elisha, "but 
you will not eat any of it!"

8:1  Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, 
"Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because 
the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years."

2  The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family 
went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.

4  The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had 
said, "Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done."

5  Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to 
life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to beg the 
king for her house and land. Gehazi said, "This is the woman, my lord the 
king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life."

7  Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the 
king was told, "The man of God has come all the way up here,"

8  he said to Hazael, "Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. 
Consult the LORD through him; ask him, 'Will I recover from this illness?'"

9  Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads 
of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and 
said, "Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, 'Will I recover 
from this illness?'"

10  Elisha answered, "Go and say to him, 'You will certainly recover'; but 
the LORD has revealed to me that he will in fact die."

11  He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the 
man of God began to weep.

12  "Why is my lord weeping?" asked Hazael. "Because I know the harm you 
will do to the Israelites," he answered. "You will set fire to their 
fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little 
children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women."

13  Hazael said, "How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a 
feat?" "The LORD has shown me that you will become king of Aram," answered 
Elisha.

14  Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad 
asked, "What did Elisha say to you?" Hazael replied, "He told me that you 
would certainly recover."

9:1  The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of the prophets and 
said to him, "Tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of oil with 
you and go to Ramoth Gilead.

2  When you get there, look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. 
Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner 
room.

3  Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, 'This is 
what the LORD says: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and 
run; don't delay!"

13:14  Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died. 
Jehoash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. "My father! 
My father!" he cried. "The chariots and horsemen of Israel!"

15  Elisha said, "Get a bow and some arrows," and he did so.

16  "Take the bow in your hands," he said to the king of Israel. When he 
had taken it, Elisha put his hands on the king's hands.

17  "Open the east window," he said, and he opened it. "Shoot!" Elisha 
said, and he shot. "The LORD'S arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over 
Aram!" Elisha declared. "You will completely destroy the Arameans at 
Aphek."

18  Then he said, "Take the arrows," and the king took them. Elisha told 
him, "Strike the ground." He struck it three times and stopped.

19  The man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck the 
ground five or six times; then you would have defeated Aram and completely 
destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times."

20  Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the 
country every spring.

21  Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band 
of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body 
touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

25:25  In the seventh month, however, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, the son of 
Elishama, who was of royal blood, came with ten men and assassinated 
Gedaliah and also the men of Judah and the Babylonians who were with him at 
Mizpah.

LUK 4:27  And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha 
the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian."

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