⁸One day Elisha went to Shunem, where an important woman lived. She begged Elisha to stay and eat. So every time Elisha passed by, he stopped there to eat. ⁹The woman said to her husband, “I know that this is a holy man of God who passes by our house all the time. ¹⁰Let’s make a small room on the roof ⁿ and put a bed in the room for him. We can put a table, a chair, and a lampstand there. Then when he comes by, he can stay there.”

¹¹One day Elisha came to the woman’s house. After he went to his room and rested, ¹²he said to his servant Gehazi, “Call the Shunammite woman.”

When the servant had called her, she stood in front of him. ¹³Elisha had told his servant, “Now say to her, ‘You have gone to all this trouble for us. What can I do for you? Do you want me to speak to the king or the commander of the army for you?’ ”

She answered, “I live among my own people.”

¹⁴Elisha said to Gehazi, “But what can we do for her?”

He answered, “She has no son, and her husband is old.”

¹⁵Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Call her.” When he called her, she stood in the doorway. ¹⁶Then Elisha said, “About this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.”

The woman said, “No, master, man of God, don’t lie to me, your servant!”

¹⁷But the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son at that time the next year, just as Elisha had told her.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

nroof In Bible times houses were built with flat roofs. The roof was used for drying things such as flax and fruit. And it was used as an extra room, as a place for worship, and as a cool place to sleep in the summer.