Study Desk

"Please let us go to the Jordan, and let us each take from there a beam, and let us construct a place there for ourselves, to live there." So he said, "Go."

So he went with them; and when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.

Then he said, "Pick it up for yourself." So he reached out his hand and took it.

And the king of Israel sent scouts to the place about which the man of God had told him; so he warned him, so that he was on his guard there, more than once or twice.

So he said, "Go and see where he is, so that I may send men and take him." And it was told to him, saying, "Behold, he is in Dothan."

So he sent horses and chariots and a substantial army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

Then Elisha prayed and said, "LORD, please, open his eyes so that he may see." And the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed to the LORD and said, "Please strike this people with blindness." So He struck them with blindness in accordance with the word of Elisha.

When they had come into Samaria, Elisha said, "LORD, open the eyes of these men, so that they may see." So the LORD opened their eyes, and they saw; and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.

But he answered, "You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow? Set bread and water before them, so that they may eat and drink, and go to their master."

So he provided a large feast for them; and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the marauding bands of Arameans did not come again into the land of Israel.

So there was a severe famine in Samaria; and behold, they kept besieging it until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.

Then the king said to her, "What is on your mind?" And she said, "This woman said to me, 'Give your son so that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.'

"So we cooked my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, so that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son."

Then he said, "May God do so to me and more so, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today."

So they got up at twilight to go to the camp of the Arameans; when they came to the outskirts of the camp of the Arameans, behold, there was no one there.

So they got up and fled at twilight, and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—indeed the camp itself, just as it was; and they fled for their lives.

So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city, and told them, saying, "We came to the camp of the Arameans, and behold, there was no one there, nor a human voice; only the horses tied and the donkeys tied, and the tents just as they were."

Then the king got up in the night and said to his servants, "I will now tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are hungry; so they have left the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, 'When they come out of the city, we will capture them alive and get into the city.'"

One of his servants responded and said, "Please, have some men take five of the horses that remain, which are left in the city. Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who are left in it; behold, they will be like all the multitude of Israel who have already perished, so let us send them and see."