Elisha Helps a Widow and Her Sons

4 Now a wife of one of the prophets^[a] appealed^[b] to Elisha for help, saying, “Your servant, my husband is dead. You know that your servant was a loyal follower of the Lord.^[c] Now the creditor is coming to take away my two boys to be his servants.” ² Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a small jar of olive oil.” ³ He said, “Go and ask all your neighbors for empty containers.^[d] Get as many as you can.^{[e] 4} Go and close the door behind you and your sons. Pour the olive oil into all the containers;^[f] set aside each one when you have filled it.” ⁵ So she left him and closed the door behind her and her sons. As they were bringing the containers to her, she was pouring the olive oil. ⁶ When the containers were full, she said to one of her sons,^[g] “Bring me another container.” But he answered her, “There are no more.” Then the olive oil stopped flowing. ⁷ She went and told the prophet.^[h] He said, “Go, sell the olive oil. Repay your creditor, and then you and your sons can live off the rest of the profit.”

Elisha Makes a Meal Edible

³⁸ Now Elisha went back to Gilgal, while there was a famine in the land. Some of the prophets were visiting him^[a] and he told his servant, “Put the big pot on the fire^[b] and boil some stew for the prophets.”^{[c] 39} Someone went out to the field to gather some herbs and found a wild vine.^[d] He picked some of its fruit,^[e] enough to fill up the fold of his robe. He came back, cut it up, and threw the slices^[f] into the stew pot, not knowing they were harmful.^{[g] 40} The stew was poured out^[h] for the men to eat. When they ate some of the stew, they cried out, “Death is in the pot, O prophet!” They could not eat it. ⁴¹ He said, “Get some flour.” Then he threw it into the pot and said, “Now pour some out for the men so they may eat.”^[i] There was no longer anything harmful in the pot.

Elisha Miraculously Feeds a Hundred People

⁴² Now a man from Baal Shalisha brought some food for the prophet^[j]—twenty loaves of bread made from the firstfruits of the barley harvest, as well as fresh ears of grain.^[k] Elisha^[l] said, “Set it before the people so they may eat.” ⁴³ But his attendant said, “How can I feed a hundred men with this?”^[m] He replied, “Set it before the people so they may eat, for this is what the Lord has said, ‘They will eat and have some left over.’”^{[n] 44} So he set it before them; they ate and had some left over, just as in the Lord’s message.