Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 240
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
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| 4:1-15
burnt offering on the wall. So there was great anger against Israel, and the
Israelites withdrew and returned to their own land.
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.”
“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.
And Elisha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your
friends and neighbors. 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.”
So she did as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she
filled one after another. 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.
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.”
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.
She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to
time is a holy man of God. 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.”
One day Elisha returned to Shunem, and he went up to this upper room
to rest. He said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the woman from Shunem I
want to speak to her.” When she appeared, 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.”
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.”
“Call her back again,” Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha