Daily Text and Bible Reading: Tuesday, April 28 [Press play below]

4.1 Now one of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying: “Your servant my husband is dead, and you well know that your servant had always feared Jehovah. Now a creditor has come to take both of my children as his slaves.”
4.2 At this Elisha said to her: “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She replied: “Your servant has nothing at all in the house but a jar of oil.”
4.3 Then he said: “Go outside, ask for containers from all your neighbors, empty containers. Do not limit yourself to a few.
4.4 Then go in and close the door behind you and your sons. Fill all these containers, and set the full ones aside.”
4.5 So she left him. When she closed the door behind her and her sons, they passed the containers to her, and she kept pouring.
4.6 When the containers were full, she said to one of her sons: “Bring another container to me.” But he said to her: “There are no more containers.” At that the oil stopped.
4.7 So she came in and told the man of the true God, and he said: “Go, sell the oil and pay off your debts, and you and your sons can live from what is left.”
4.8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a prominent woman, and she urged him to eat a meal there. As often as he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.
4.9 So she said to her husband: “I know that it is a holy man of God who comes this way regularly.
4.10 Please, let us make a small room on the roof and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand. Then, whenever he comes to us, he can stay there.”
4.11 One day he came there, and he went to the room on the roof to lie down.
4.12 He then said to Gehazi his attendant: “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her, and she stood before him.
4.13 Then he said to Gehazi: “Please tell her, ‘Here you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can be done for you? Should I speak in your behalf to the king or to the chief of the army?’” But her reply was: “I am living among my own people.”
4.14 So he said: “Then what can be done for her?” Gehazi now said: “Well, she does not have a son, and her husband is old.”
4.15 Immediately he said: “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood at the doorway.
4.16 Then he said: “At this time next year, you will be embracing a son.” But she said: “No, my master, man of the true God! Do not tell lies to your servant.”
4.17 However, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son at the same time the next year, just as Elisha had told her.
4.18 The child grew up, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.
4.19 He kept saying to his father: “My head, O my head!” Then his father said to the attendant: “Carry him to his mother.”
4.20 So he carried him back to his mother, and he sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.
4.21 Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of the true God, and she shut the door behind her and left.
4.22 She now called her husband and said: “Send me, please, one of the attendants and one of the donkeys, and let me go quickly to the man of the true God and return.”
4.23 But he said: “Why are you going to see him today? It is not a new moon or a sabbath.” However, she said: “Everything is all right.”
4.24 So she saddled the donkey and said to her attendant: “Go quickly. Do not slow down for me unless I tell you to.”
4.25 So she went to the man of the true God at Mount Carmel. As soon as the man of the true God saw her from afar, he said to Gehazi his attendant: “Look! The Shunammite woman is over there.
4.26 Please run to meet her and ask her, ‘Are you well? Is your husband well? Is your child well?’” To this she said: “All is well.”
4.27 When she came to the man of the true God at the mountain, she at once grabbed hold of his feet. At this Gehazi came near to push her away, but the man of the true God said: “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and Jehovah has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
4.28 She then said: “Did I ask my lord for a son? Did I not say, ‘You must not give me a false hope’?”
4.29 He immediately said to Gehazi: “Wrap your garments around your waist and take my staff in your hand and go. If you encounter anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone should greet you, do not answer him. Go and place my staff on the boy’s face.”
4.30 At this the boy’s mother said: “As surely as Jehovah is living and as you yourself are living, I will not leave you.” So he got up and went with her.
4.31 Gehazi went before them and put the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. He went back to meet Elisha and told him: “The boy did not wake up.”
4.32 When Elisha came into the house, the boy was lying dead on his bed.
4.33 He went in and closed the door behind them both and began to pray to Jehovah.
4.34 Then he got up on the bed and lay down on the child and put his own mouth on the boy’s mouth, his own eyes on his eyes, and his own palms on his palms and kept bent over him, and the child’s body started to grow warm.
4.35 He walked back and forth in the house, and he got up on the bed and bent over him again. The boy sneezed seven times, after which he opened his eyes.
4.36 Elisha now called Gehazi and said: “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came in to him. Then he said: “Pick up your son.”
4.37 And she came in and fell at his feet and bowed down to the ground before him, after which she picked up her son and went out.
4.38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were sitting before him, and he said to his attendant: “Put the large pot on and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”
4.39 So one of them went out to the field to pick mallows, and he found a wild vine and picked wild gourds from it, filling his garment. He then returned and sliced them into the stewpot, not knowing what they were.
4.40 They later served it to the men to eat, but as soon as they ate from the stew, they cried out: “There is death in the pot, O man of the true God.” And they could not eat it.
4.41 So he said: “Bring some flour.” After he threw it into the pot, he said: “Serve it to the people.” And nothing harmful was in the pot.
4.42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, and he brought the man of the true God 20 loaves of barley bread made from the first ripe fruits, as well as a bag of new grain. Then Elisha said: “Give it to the people so that they may eat.”
4.43 However, his attendant said: “How can I set this before 100 men?” To this he said: “Give it to the people so that they may eat, for this is what Jehovah says, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”
4.44 At that he put it before them, and they ate and they had some left over, according to the word of Jehovah.


5.1 Now Naaman the army chief of the king of Syria was a prominent man who was held in esteem by his lord, because through him Jehovah had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty warrior, although he was a leper.
5.2 On one of their raids, the Syrians had taken captive from the land of Israel a little girl who became a servant to Naaman’s wife.
5.3 She said to her mistress: “If only my lord would visit the prophet in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.”
5.4 So he went and reported to his lord, telling him what the girl from Israel had said.
5.5 Then the king of Syria said: “Go now! And I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, 6,000 pieces of gold, and ten changes of garments.
5.6 He brought to the king of Israel the letter, which read: “Along with this letter that has come to you, I send my servant Naaman so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
5.7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he ripped his garments apart and said: “Am I God, to put to death and to keep alive? For he is sending this man to me, telling me to cure him of his leprosy! You can see for yourselves that he is seeking a quarrel with me.”
5.8 But when Elisha the man of the true God heard that the king of Israel had ripped his garments apart, he at once sent word to the king: “Why did you rip your garments apart? Please let him come to me so that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
5.9 So Naaman came with his horses and his war chariots and stood at the entrance of the house of Elisha.
5.10 However, Elisha sent a messenger to tell him: “Go, wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”
5.11 At this Naaman became indignant and started to leave, saying: “Here I said to myself, ‘He will come out to me and stand here and call on the name of Jehovah his God, moving his hand back and forth over the leprosy to cure it.’
5.12 Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Can I not wash in them and become clean?” With that he turned and went away in a rage.
5.13 His servants now approached him and said: “My father, if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not do it? How much more, then, since he only said to you, ‘Wash and be clean’?”
5.14 At that he went down and plunged into the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of the true God. Then his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little boy, and he became clean.
5.15 After that he went back to the man of the true God, he and all his entourage, and he stood before him and said: “Now I know that there is no God anywhere in all the earth but in Israel. Now accept, please, a gift from your servant.”
5.16 However, Elisha said: “As surely as Jehovah whom I serve is living, I will not accept it.” He urged him to accept it, but he kept refusing.
5.17 Finally Naaman said: “If not, please, let your servant be given two mule-loads of soil from this land, for your servant will no longer offer a burnt offering or a sacrifice to any gods other than Jehovah.
5.18 But may Jehovah forgive your servant for this one thing: When my lord goes into the house of Rimmon to bow down there, he supports himself on my arm, so I have to bow down at the house of Rimmon. When I bow down at the house of Rimmon, may Jehovah, please, forgive your servant for this.”
5.19 At this he said to him: “Go in peace.” After he departed from him and had traveled for some distance,
5.20 Gehazi the attendant of Elisha the man of the true God said to himself: ‘Here my master has spared this Syrian Naaman by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as Jehovah is living, I will run after him and take something from him.’
5.21 So Gehazi chased after Naaman. When Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and said: “Is everything all right?”
5.22 To this he said: “All is well. My master has sent me, saying, ‘Look! Just now two young men from the mountainous region of Ephraim from the sons of the prophets came to me. Give them, please, a talent of silver and two changes of garments.’”
5.23 Naaman said: “Go on, take two talents.” He kept urging him, and he wrapped up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, and gave them to two of his attendants, who carried them before him.
5.24 When he reached Ophel, he took them from their hand and put them in the house and sent the men away. After they left,
5.25 he went in and stood by his master. Elisha now said to him: “Where did you come from, Gehazi?” But he said: “Your servant did not go anywhere.”
5.26 Elisha said to him: “Was my heart not there with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to accept silver or to accept garments or olive groves or vineyards or sheep or cattle or male or female servants?
5.27 Now Naaman’s leprosy will stick to you and your descendants forever.” Immediately he went out from before him a leper, white as snow.