2 Kings 4
1Now 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. 4Then go inside, shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour oil into all these jars, setting the full ones aside.” 5So 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. 6When 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. 7She 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.” 8One 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. 9Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God. 10Please 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.” 11One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down. 12And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.” And when he had called her, she stood before him, 13and 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. 14So 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. 16And 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.” 17But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her. 18And 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.” 20After the servant had picked him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. 21And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. Then she shut the door and went out. 22And 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. 24Then she saddled the donkey and told her servant, “Drive onward; do not slow the pace for me unless I tell you.” 25So 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. 26Please 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.” 27When 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.” 28Then she said, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I say, ‘Do not deceive me?’” 29So 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.” 30And 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. 31Gehazi 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.” 32When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his bed. 33So he went in, closed the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the LORD. 34Then 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. 35Elisha 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. 36Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite woman.” So he called her and she came. Then Elisha said, “Pick up your son.” 37She came in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out. 38When 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.” 39One 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. 40And 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. 41Then 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. 42Now 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. 43But 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.’” 44So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
Life is short. Where are you going?
You just read God’s own words, and one day every one of us will stand before Him. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). This life will be over sooner than you think — do you know where you are going when it is?
The Bible says, “Man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). If you died today, would you be ready?
Are you a good person?
Most of us think we are. But God doesn’t measure us against other people — He measures us by His Law. Look honestly at the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3–17):
- You shall have no other gods before Me.
- You shall not make for yourself an idol.
- You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
- Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
- Honor your father and mother.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not steal.
- You shall not bear false witness.
- You shall not covet.
Have you ever told a lie — even a small one? Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Have you ever used God’s name as a curse word? Have you ever wanted what belongs to someone else? Jesus said that anyone who looks with lust “has already committed adultery … in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), and the Bible says “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15).
If we’re honest, we have all broken God’s Law — and “whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). “There is no one righteous, not even one … there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10–12).
That leaves every one of us guilty before a holy God. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and “whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). This is why our world is full of tragedy — and without Christ, every life ends in the greatest tragedy of all.
But God made a way
“God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus lived the perfect life we never could, and on the cross He took the punishment we deserved: “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Three days later He rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).
It’s like standing guilty in court when the judge steps down and pays your fine himself. Forgiveness is a free gift — you can’t earn it: “It is by grace you have been saved through faith … it is the gift of God, not by works” (Ephesians 2:8–9). “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.” Jesus — John 10:10
What will you do with Jesus?
“Repent and believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:15). Turn from your sin, and put your trust in Jesus alone — “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Don’t put it off — “now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
And when you turn to Him, you won’t be met with a frown — you’ll be met with a celebration. Jesus said, “there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). He is “mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness … He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). Like the father who ran to embrace his lost son, He is waiting with open arms — and heaven throws a party when you come home (Luke 15:20–24).
If you died today, where would you spend eternity? Today you can be forgiven, made new, and have real, abundant life — now and forever.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), which is in the public domain.