Study Desk

She came and fell at his feet and bowed down to the ground; then she picked up her son and went out.

So Elisha returned to Gilgal. Now the famine was in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him. He said to his servant, put on the large pot and cook a stew for the sons of the prophets.

One went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine and gathered wild gourds from it and filled his cloak. Then he came and cut them into the pot of stew, but they did not know what they were.

A man came from Baal-Shalishah and brought food to the man of God: firstfruits and twenty loaves of barley bread, with ripe grain in his sack. He said, "Give it to the people and let them eat."

Then his servant said, "How can I set this before a hundred men?" He said, "Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus Yahweh says, ‘They shall eat and have some left over.'"

Now Naaman was the commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man before his master and highly regarded, for by him Yahweh had given victory to Aram. Now the man was a mighty warrior, but he was afflicted with a skin disease.

She said to her mistress, "If only my lord would come before the prophet who is in Samaria; then he would cure his skin disease."

He came and told his master, saying, "Thus and so the girl who is from the land of Israel said."

So he brought the letter of the king to Israel, saying, "Now, when this letter comes to you, I have just sent Naaman my servant to you that you may cure him from his skin disease."

It happened that when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, "Am I God to cause death or to give life? This man is sending a man to me to cure his disease. Indeed! But know and see that he seeks an opportunity against me."

It happened that as soon as Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, "Why did you tear your clothes? Please may he come to me, that he might know that there is a prophet in Israel."

Then Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and he stopped at the doorway of the house of Elisha.

But Naaman became angry and he went and said, "Look, I said to myself, ‘Surely he will come out, stand, call upon the name of Yahweh his God, and wave his hands over the spot; then he would take away the skin disease.'

But his servants came near and spoke to him and said, "My father, if the prophet had spoken a difficult thing to you to do, would you not have done it? Why not even when he says to you, ‘Wash and you shall be clean'?"

So he went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh returned as the flesh of a small boy, and he was clean.

When he returned to the man of God, he and all of his army, he came and stood before him and said, "Please now, I know that there is no God in all of the world except in Israel. So then, please take a gift from your servant."

But Gehazi the servant of Elisha, the man of God, thought, "Look, my master has refrained from taking what this Aramean Naaman brought from his hand. As Yahweh lives, I will certainly run after him, and I will accept something from him."

So Gehazi pursued after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he jumped off his chariot to meet him and asked him, "Is it peace?"

Then Naaman said, "Be prepared to accept two talents." So he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two sets of clothing and gave it to two of his servants and they carried it before him.

When he went and stood by his master, Elisha asked him, "From where have you come, Gehazi?" And he said, "Your servant has not gone anywhere."