2 Kings 4:38-44

The Message

³⁸ Elisha went back down to Gilgal. There was a famine there. While he was consulting with the guild of prophets, he told his servant, “Put a large pot on the fire and cook up some stew for the prophets.”

^39-40 One of the men went out into the field to get some herbs; he came across a wild vine and picked gourds from it, filling his gunnysack. He brought them back, sliced them up, and put them in the stew, even though no one knew what kind of plant it was. The stew was then served up for the men to eat. They started to eat, and then exclaimed, “Death in the pot, O man of God! Death in the pot!” Nobody could eat it.

Elisha ordered, “Get me some meal.” Then he sprinkled it into the stew pot.

⁴¹ “Now serve it up to the men,” he said. They ate it, and it was just fine—nothing wrong with that stew!

⁴² One day a man arrived from Baal Shalishah. He brought the man of God twenty loaves of fresh-baked bread from the early harvest, along with a few apples from the orchard.

Elisha said, “Pass it around to the people to eat.”

⁴³ His servant said, “For a hundred men? There’s not nearly enough!”

Elisha said, “Just go ahead and do it. God says there’s plenty.”

⁴⁴ And sure enough, there was. He passed around what he had—they not only ate, but had leftovers.