r or the commander of the army to do a favor for
you?'" She answered, "I am living among my own people." Elisha said,
"What then can be done for her?" Gehazi answered, "Verily, she has no
son, and her husband is old." Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called
her, and she stood at the door. Then Elisha said, "At this time a year
from now you shall hold a son in your arms!" But she said, "No, my lord,
O man of God, do not deceive your servant!" But the next year the woman
had a son at the very time Elisha had promised her.

When the child had grown up he went out one day to his father to the
reapers. And he called to his father, "My head, my head!" So his father
said to his servant, "Carry him to his mother." When he had been taken
to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon and then died. His
mother went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the
door as she went out.

[Illustration: (C) _Curtis Publishing Company_

_The Parting of Elijah and Elisha_

Painted by W. T. Taylor]

Then she called her husband and said, "Send me one of the servants and
one of the asses, that I may go quickly to the man of God and return."
He said, "Why do you go to him to-day, for it is neither the feast of
the new moon nor the sabbath?" She said, "I have good reason."

Then she saddled an ass and said to her servant, "Drive on fast, do not
stop until I tell you." So she went to the man of God on Mount Carmel.
But when Elisha saw her at a distance, he said to Gehazi, his servant,
"See, there is the Shunamite! Run down to meet her and say to her, 'Is
all well with you? Is your husband well? Is the child well?'" And she
answered, "All is well." But when she came to the man of God on the
mountain, she caught hold of his feet. When Gehazi tried to push her
away, Elisha said, "Let her alone, for she is deeply troubled and
Jehovah has not told me the reason." Then she said, "Did I ask a son of
my lord? Did I not say, 'Do not deceive me?'"

Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tighten your belt, take my staff in your hand
and go! If you meet any one, do not speak to him, and if any one speaks
to you do not answer him, and lay my staff on the face of the child."
But the mother of the child said, "As surely as Jehovah lives and as you
live, I will not leave you." So he rose and went with her. And Gehazi
had gone on before them and had laid the staff upon the face of the
child, but there was neither sound nor sign of life in the boy. So