Study Desk

When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, "Ask me what I should do for you before I am taken from you." And Elisha said, "Please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me."

He said, "You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so."

And as they were walking along and talking, behold, a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and they separated the two of them. Then Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.

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

Now Mesha the king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he used to make tribute payments to the king of Israel of a hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of a hundred thousand rams.

So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom, and they made a circuit of seven days' journey. But there was no water for the army or for the cattle that followed them.

"But now bring me a musician." And it came about, when the musician played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.

So they destroyed the cities; and each one threw a stone on every plot of good land and filled it. So they stopped up every spring of water and cut down every good tree, until in Kir-hareseth only they left its stones; however, the rock slingers surrounded it and struck it.

Then the king of Moab took his oldest son who was to reign in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great anger came upon Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.

Now a woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD; and the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves."

So Elisha said to her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?" And she said, "Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil."

Now a day came when Elisha went over to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she urged him to eat food. And so it was, as often as he passed by, that he turned in there to eat food.

And she said to her husband, "Behold now, I am aware that this is a holy man of God passing by us repeatedly.

"Please, let's make a little walled upper room, and let's set up a bed for him there, and a table, a chair, and a lampstand; then it shall be, when he comes to us, that he can turn in there."

So he said, "What then is to be done for her?" And Gehazi answered, "It is a fact that she has no son, and her husband is old."

Then he said, "At this season next year, you are going to embrace a son." And she said, "No, my lord, you man of God, do not lie to your servant."

Now the woman conceived and gave birth to a son at that season the next year, as Elisha had told her.

So she went on and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi his servant, "Behold, that person there is the Shunammite.

Then she said, "Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, 'Do not give me false hope'?"

When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting in front of him, he said to his servant, "Put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets."