2nd Kings — 4

Alysha Helps a Poor Widow

1 One day the widow of a member of the group of Nabym (prophets) came to Alysha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he feared  𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH. But now a creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.”

2 “What can I do to help you?” Alysha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house? “Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied.

3 And Alysha said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. 

4 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.”

5 So she did as she was told, her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after another. 

6 Soon every container was full to the brim! “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her sons. There is no more jars!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped flowing.

7 When she told the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH  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.”

Alysha and the Woman from Shunam

8 One day Alysha went to the town of Shunam. 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.

9 She said to her husband, “I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a qadash servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH. 

10 Let us 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.”

11 One day Alysha returned to Shunam, and he went up to this upper room to rest. 

12 He said to his servant Gahazi, “Tell the woman from Shunam I want to speak to her.”, 

13 Alysha said to Gahazi, “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.”

14 Later Alysha asked Gahazi, “What can we do for her?” Gahazi replied, “She does not have a son, and her husband is an old man.”

15 “Call her back again,” Alysha told him. When the woman returned, Alysha said to her as she stood in the doorway, 

16 “Next year at this time you will be holding a son in your arms! “No, my master!” she cried. “O servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH, do not deceive me and get my hopes up like that.”

17 But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Alysha had said.

18 One day when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters. 

19 Suddenly he cried out, “My head hurts! My head hurts!” his father said to one of the servants, “Carry him home to his mother.”

20 So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. 

21 She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH, then shut the door and left him there. 

22 She sent a message to her husband: “Send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH and come right back.”

23 “Why go today?” he asked. “It is neither a new moon festival nor a Shabbat.” But she said, “It will be all right.”

24 So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, “Hurry! Do not slow down unless I tell you to.”

25 As she approached the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH at Mount Carmel, Alysha saw her in the distance, he said to Gahazi, “Look, the woman from Shunam is coming. 

26 Run out to meet her and ask her, ‘Is everything all right with you, your husband, and your child?’” “Yes,” the woman told Gahazi, “everything is fine.”

27 But when she came to the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gahazi began to push her away, but the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH said, “Leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, but  𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH has not told me what it is.”

28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my master? And did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me and get my hopes up’?”

29 Then Alysha said to Gahazi, “Get ready to travel; take my staff and go! Do not talk to anyone along the way. Go quickly and lay the staff on the child’s face.”

30 But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as  𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH lives and you yourself live, I will not go home unless you go with me.” So Alysha returned with her.

31 Gahazi hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child’s face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life, he returned to meet Alysha and told him, “The child is still dead.”

32 When Alysha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the Nabym bed. 

33 He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH. 

34 Then he lay down on the child’s body, placing his mouth on the child’s mouth, his eyes on the child’s eyes, and his hands on the child’s hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child’s body began to grow warm again! 

35 Alysha got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out again on the child. This time the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes!

36 Then Alysha summoned Gahazi. “Call the child’s mother!” And when she came in, Alysha said, “Here, take your son!” 

37 She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with gratitude. Then she took her son in her arms and carried him downstairs.

Miracles during a Famine

38 Alysha now returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. One day as the group of Nabym was seated before him, he said to his servant, “Put a large pot on the fire, and make some stew for the rest of the group.”

39 One of the young men went out into the field to gather herbs and came back with a pocketful of wild gourds, he shredded them and put them into the pot without realizing they were poisonous. 

40 Some of the stew was served to the men. But after they had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH, there’s poison in this stew!” So they would not eat it.

41 Alysha said, “Bring me some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now it’s all right; go ahead and eat.” And the food did not harm them again.

42 One day a man from Baal-shalishah brought the servant of 𐤀𐤋𐤅𐤄_ALUAH a sack of fresh grain and twenty loaves of barley bread made from the first grain of his harvest. Alysha said, “Give it to the people so they can eat.”

43 “What?” his servant exclaimed. “Feed a hundred people with only this?” But Alysha repeated, “Give it to the people so they can eat, for this is what 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH Dabar: Everyone will eat, and there will even be some left over!” 

44 And when they gave it to the people, there was plenty for all and some left over, just as 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄_YAHUAH had Dabar.