Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 248
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
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famine on Israel that will last for seven years.” So the woman did as the
man of God instructed. She took her family and settled in the land of the
Philistines for seven years.
After the famine ended she returned from the land of the Philistines,
and she went to see the king about getting back her house and land. As
she came in, the king was talking with Gehazi, the servant of the man of
God. The king had just said, “Tell me some stories about the great things
Elisha has done.” And Gehazi was telling the king about the time Elisha
had brought a boy back to life. At that very moment, the mother of the
boy walked in to make her appeal to the king about her house and land.
“Look, my lord the king!” Gehazi exclaimed. “Here is the woman now,
and this is her son—the very one Elisha brought back to life!”
“Is this true?” the king asked her. And she told him the story. So he directed one of his officials to see that everything she had lost was restored
to her, including the value of any crops that had been harvested during
her absence.
Elisha went to Damascus, the capital of Aram, where King Ben-hadad lay
sick. When someone told the king that the man of God had come, the
king said to Hazael, “Take a gift to the man of God. Then tell him to ask
the Lord, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’”
So Hazael loaded down forty camels with the finest products of
Damascus as a gift for Elisha. He went to him and said, “Your servant
Ben-hadad, the king of Aram, has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this
illness?’”
And Elisha replied, “Go and tell him, ‘You will surely recover.’ But actually the Lord has shown me that he will surely die!” Elisha stared at Haz
ael with a fixed gaze until Hazael became uneasy. Then the man of God
started weeping.
“What’s the matter, my lord?” Hazael asked him.
Elisha replied, “I know the terrible things you will do to the people of
Israel. You will burn their fortified cities, kill their young men with the
sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant
women!”
Hazael responded, “How could a nobody like me ever accomplish such
great things?”
Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are going to be the
king of Aram.”
When Hazael left Elisha and went back, the king asked him, “What did
Elisha tell you?”
And Hazael replied, “He told me that you will surely recover.”
But the next day Hazael took a blanket, soaked it in water, and held