Second Book of Kings 2

¹ This is what happened when Yahweh took Elijah up to heaven in the whirlwind: Elijah and Elisha set out from Gilgal,

² and Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Please stay here, for Yahweh is only sending me to Bethel’. But Elisha replied, ‘As Yahweh lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you!’ and they went down to Bethel.

³ The brotherhood of prophets who live at Bethel came out to meet Elisha and said, ‘Do you know that Yahweh is going to carry your lord and master away today?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ he said ‘be quiet.’

⁴ Elijah said, ‘Elisha, please stay here, Yahweh is only sending me to Jericho’. But he replied, ‘As Yahweh lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you!’ and they went on to Jericho.

⁵ The brotherhood of prophets who live at Jericho went up to Elisha and said, ‘Do you know that Yahweh is going to carry your lord and master away today?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ he said ‘be quiet.’

⁶ Elijah said, ‘Elisha, please stay here, Yahweh is only sending me to the Jordan’. But he replied, ‘As Yahweh lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you!’ And they went on together.

⁷ Fifty of the brotherhood of prophets followed them, halting some distance away as the two of them stood beside the Jordan.

⁸ Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water; and the water divided to left and right, and the two of them crossed over dry-shod.

⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Make your request. What can I do for you before I am taken from you?’ Elisha answered, ‘Let me inherit a double share of your spirit’.[*a]

¹⁰ ‘Your request is a difficult one’ Elijah said. ‘If you see me while I am being taken from you, it shall be as you ask; if not, it will not be so.’

¹¹ Now as they walked on, talking as they went, a chariot of fire appeared and horses of fire, coming between the two of them; and Elijah went up to heaven in the whirlwind.

¹² Elisha saw it, and shouted, ‘My father! My father! Chariot of Israel and its chargers!’ Then he lost sight of him, and taking hold of his clothes he tore them in half.

¹³ He picked up the cloak of Elijah which had fallen, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.

¹⁴ He took the cloak of Elijah and struck the water. ‘Where is Yahweh, the God of Elijah?’ he cried. He struck the water, and it divided to right and left, and Elisha crossed over.

¹⁵ The brotherhood of prophets saw him in the distance, and said, ‘The spirit of Elijah has come to rest on Elisha’; they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.

¹⁶ ‘Look,’ they said ‘your servants have fifty strong men with them; let them go and look for your master; the spirit of Yahweh may have taken him up and thrown him down on a mountain or into a valley.’ ‘Send no one’ he replied.

¹⁷ But they so shamed him with their insistence that he consented. So they sent fifty men who searched for three days without finding him.

¹⁸ They then came back to Elisha who had stayed in Jericho; he said, ‘Did I not tell you not to go?’

¹⁹ The men of the town said to Elisha, ‘The town is pleasant to live in, as my lord indeed can see, but the water is foul and the country suffers from miscarriages’.

²⁰ ‘Bring me a new bowl,’ he said ‘and put some salt in it.’ They brought it to him.

²¹ Then he went to the place the water came from and threw salt into it. ‘Thus Yahweh speaks,’ he said ‘”I make this water wholesome: neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it any more”.’

²² And the water was made wholesome, and is so today, exactly as Elisha had said it would be.

²³ From there he went up to Bethel, and while he was on the road up, some small boys came out of the town and jeered at him. ‘Go up, baldhead!’ they shouted ‘Go up, baldhead!’

²⁴ He turned round and looked at them; and he cursed them in the name of Yahweh. And two she-bears came out of the wood and savaged forty-two of the boys.

²⁵ From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria.