The Shunamite Woman

(8) One day Elisha visited Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to have a meal; and whenever he passed by, he would stop there for a meal. (9) Once she said to her husband, “I am sure it is a holy agent of God who comes this way regularly. (10) Let us make a small enclosed upper chamber and place a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand there for him, so that he can stop there whenever he comes to us.”

(11) One day he came there; he retired to the upper chamber and lay down there. (12) He said to his servant Gehazi, “Call that Shunammite.” He called her, and she stood before him. (13) He said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak in your behalf to the king or to the army commander?’” She replied, “I live among my own people.” (14) “What then can be done for her?” he asked. “The fact is,” said Gehazi, “she has no son, and her husband is old.” (15) “Call her,” he said. He called her, and she stood in the doorway. (16) And Elisha said, “At this season next year, you will be embracing a son.” She replied, “Please, my lord, agent of God, do not delude your maidservant.” (17) The woman conceived and bore a son at the same season the following year, as Elisha had assured her.

(18) The child grew up. One day, he went out to his father among the reapers. (19) [Suddenly] he cried to his father, “Oh, my head, my head!” He said to a servant, “Carry him to his mother.” (20) He picked him up and brought him to his mother. And the child sat on her lap until noon; and he died. (21) She took him up and laid him on the bed of the agent of God, and left him and closed the door. (22) Then she called to her husband: “Please, send me one of the servants and one of the jennies, so I can hurry to the agent of God and back.” (23) But he said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither new moon nor sabbath.” She answered, “It’s all right.”Heb. shalom. (24) She had the jenny saddled, and said to her servant, “Urge it on see that I don’t slow down unless I tell you.” (25) She went on until she came to the agent of God on Mount Carmel. When the agent of God saw her from afar, he said to his servant Gehazi, “There is that Shunammite. (26) Go, hurry toward her and ask her, ‘How are you? How is your husband? How is the child?’” “We are well,” she replied. (27) But when she came up to the agent of God on the mountain, she clasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away; but the agent of God said, “Let her alone, for she is in bitter distress; and God has hidden it from me and has not told me.” (28) Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say: ‘Don’t mislead me’?” (29) He said to Gehazi, “Tie up your skirts, Lit. “Gird your loins”; cf. 1 Kings 18.46. take my staff in your hand, and go. If you meet anyone, do not greet him; and if anyone greets you, do not answer him. And place my staff on the face of the boy.” (30) But the boy’s mother said, “As God lives and as you live, I will not leave you!” So he arose and followed her.

(31) Gehazi had gone on before them and had placed the staff on the boy’s face; but there was no sound or response. He turned back to meet him and told him, “The boy has not awakened.” (32) Elisha came into the house, and there was the boy, laid out dead on his couch. (33) He went in, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to God. (34) Then he mounted [the bed] and placed himself over the child. He put his mouth on its mouth, his eyes on its eyes, and his hands on its hands, as he bent over it. And the body of the child became warm. (35) He stepped down, walked once up and down the room, then mounted and bent over him. Thereupon, the boy sneezed seven times, and the boy opened his eyes. (36) [Elisha] called Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite,” and he called her. When she came to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” (37) She came and fell at his feet and bowed low to the ground; then she picked up her son and left.

The Epilogue (1) Elisha had said to the woman whose son he revived, “Leave immediately with your family and go sojourn somewhere else; Lit. “wherever you may sojourn.” for God has decreed a seven-year famine upon the land, and it has already begun.” (2) The woman had done as the agent of God had spoken; she left with her family and sojourned in the land of the Philistines for seven years. (3) At the end of the seven years, the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went to the king to complain about her house and farm. (4) Now the king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the agent of God, and he said, “Tell me all the wonderful things that Elisha has done.” (5) While he was telling the king how [Elisha] had revived a dead person, in came the woman whose son he had revived, complaining to the king about her house and farm. “My lord king,” said Gehazi, “this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha revived.” (6) The king questioned the woman, and she told him [the story]; so the king assigned a eunuch to her and instructed him: “Restore all her property, and all the revenue from her farm from the time she left the country until now.”