Day 113: 2 Kings 3 - 5

Bible in a year reading for day 113.

2 Kings 3

5 But after the death of Ahab, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
6 So at that time King Jehoram set out from Samaria and mobilized all Israel.
7 And he sent a message to Jehoshaphat king of Judah: “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?” “I will go,” replied Jehoshaphat. “I am like you, my people are your people, and my horses are your horses.”
8 Then he asked, “Which way shall we go up?” “By way of the Desert of Edom,” replied Joram.
9 So the king of Israel, the king of Judah, and the king of Edom set out, and after they had traveled a roundabout route for seven days, they had no water for their army or for their animals.
10 “Alas,” said the king of Israel, “for the LORD has summoned these three kings to deliver them into the hand of Moab!”
11 But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no prophet of the LORD here? Let us inquire of the LORD through him.” And one of the servants of the king of Israel answered, “Elisha son of Shaphat is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah.”
12 Jehoshaphat affirmed, “The word of the LORD is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.
13 Elisha, however, said to the king of Israel, “What have we to do with each other? Go to the prophets of your father and of your mother!” “No,” replied the king of Israel, “for it is the LORD who has summoned these three kings to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
14 Then Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD of Hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not for my regard for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you or acknowledge you.
15 But now, bring me a harpist.” And while the harpist played, the hand of the LORD came upon Elisha
16 and he said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Dig this valley full of ditches.’
17 For the LORD says, ‘You will not see wind or rain, but the valley will be filled with water, and you will drink—you and your cattle and your animals.’
18 This is a simple matter in the sight of the LORD, and He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand.
19 And you shall attack every fortified city and every city of importance. You shall cut down every good tree, stop up every spring, and ruin every good field with stones.”
20 The next morning, at the time of the morning sacrifice, water suddenly flowed from the direction of Edom and filled the land.
21 Now all the Moabites had heard that the kings had come up to fight against them. So all who could bear arms, young and old, were summoned and stationed at the border.
22 When they got up early in the morning, the sun was shining on the water, and it looked as red as blood to the Moabites across the way.
23 “This is blood!” they exclaimed. “The kings have clashed swords and slaughtered one another. Now to the plunder, Moab!”
24 But when the Moabites came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked them, and they fled before them. So the Israelites invaded their land and struck down the Moabites.
25 They destroyed the cities, and each man threw stones on every good field until it was covered. They stopped up every spring and cut down every good tree. Only Kir-haraseth was left with stones in place, but men with slings surrounded it and attacked it as well.
26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not prevail.
27 So he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the city wall. And there was great fury against the Israelites, so they withdrew and returned to their own land.

2 Kings 4

1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And now his creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves!”
2 “How can I help you?” asked Elisha. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
3 “Go,” said Elisha, “borrow jars, even empty ones, from all your neighbors. Do not gather just a few.
4 Then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all these jars, setting the full ones aside.”
5 So she left him, and after she had shut the door behind her and her sons, they kept bringing jars to her, and she kept pouring.
6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another.” But he replied, “There are no more jars.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live on the remainder.”
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat.
9 Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God.
10 Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.”
11 One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down.
12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.” And when he had called her, she stood before him,
13 and Elisha said to Gehazi, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’” “I have a home among my own people,” she replied.
14 So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?” “Well, she has no son,” Gehazi replied, “and her husband is old.”
15 “Call her,” said Elisha. So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway.
16 And Elisha declared, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” “No, my lord,” she said. “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God.”
17 But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
18 And the child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the harvesters.
19 “My head! My head!” he complained to his father. So his father told a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”
20 After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.
21 And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out.
22 And the woman called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return.”
23 “Why would you go to him today?” he replied. “It is not a New Moon or a Sabbath.” “Everything is all right,” she said.
24 Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.”
25 So she set out and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her at a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman.
26 Please run out now to meet her and ask, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?’” And she answered, “Everything is all right.”
27 When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she clung to his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in deep distress, and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.”
28 Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’”
29 So Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tie up your garment, 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. Then lay my staff on the boy’s face.”
30 And the mother of the boy said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
31 Gehazi went on ahead of them and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So he went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
32 When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed.
33 So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD.
34 Then Elisha got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eye to eye, and hand to hand. As he stretched himself out over him, the boy’s body became warm.
35 Elisha turned away and paced back and forth across the room. Then he got on the bed and stretched himself out over the boy again, and the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.”
37 She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.
38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, he said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”
39 One of them went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment could hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.
40 And they poured it out for the men to eat, but when they tasted the stew they cried out, “There is death in the pot, O man of God!” And they could not eat it.
41 Then Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Pour it out for the people to eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
42 Now a man from Baal-shalishah came to the man of God with a sack of twenty loaves of barley bread from the first ripe grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha.
43 But his servant asked, “How am I to set twenty loaves before a hundred men?” “Give it to the people to eat,” said Elisha, “for this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”
44 So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

2 Kings 5

1 Now Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in his master’s sight and highly regarded, for through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. And he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
2 At this time the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken a young girl from the land of Israel, and she was serving Naaman’s wife.
3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would go to the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 And Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.
5 “Go now,” said the king of Aram, “and I will send you with a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman departed, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of clothing.
6 And the letter that he took to the king of Israel stated: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a leper? Surely you can see that he is seeking a quarrel with me!”
8 Now when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king: “Why have you torn your clothes? Please let the man come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10 Then Elisha sent him a messenger, who said, “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored, and you will be clean.”
11 But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out, stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the spot to cure my leprosy.
12 Are not the Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not have washed in them and been cleansed?” So he turned and went away in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants, however, approached him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’?”
14 So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean.
15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
16 But Elisha replied, “As surely as the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will not accept it.” And although Naaman urged him to accept it, he refused.
17 “If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much soil as a pair of mules can carry. For your servant will never again make a burnt offering or a sacrifice to any other god but the LORD.
18 Yet may the LORD forgive your servant this one thing: When my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my arm, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant in this matter.”

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