May 18 Daily Devotional

2 Kings 4–8

Elisha came to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before their teacher Elisha. And he said unto his servant, “Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets.” And one of them went out into the field to gather herbs. He found a wild vine and gathered thereof wild gourds which were poisonous. But he did not know this and shred them into the pot of pottage. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage that they cried out and said, “O thou man of God, there is death in the pot.” And they could not eat thereof. But Elisha said, “Then bring meal.” And he cast it into the pot, and said, “Pour out for the people, that they may eat.” And the pottage was good to eat.

And there came a man from Baalshalisha, and brought to Elisha twenty loaves of barley, and ears of corn in the husk thereof. And he said, “Give unto the people, that they may eat. And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat; for thus saith the Lord, They shall eat, and leave thereof.”

“And the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make a place there, where he may dwell. And he answered, Go ye. And one said, Be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood. But as one was felling a beam, the axe head fell into the water: and he cried, and said, Alas, master! for it was borrowed. And the man of God said, Where fell it? And he showed him the place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in thither; and the iron did swim.”

Then Elisha spoke to the woman, whose son he had restored to life, “Arise, and go thou and thy household, and sojourn wheresoever thou canst sojourn: for the Lord hath called for a famine; and it shall come upon the land seven years.” And the woman arose and did as Elisha had said: she went with her household, and lived in the land of the Philistines seven years. And it came to pass when she returned, “she went forth to cry unto the king for her house and for her land. And the king talked with Gehazi the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, I pray thee, all the great things that Elisha hath done.” And Gehazi told him how Elisha had restored a dead body to life and said, My lord, O king, this woman that is crying to the king for her house and land, is the woman and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life. And the king asked the woman, and appointed unto her a certain officer, saying, “Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field.”