The Recovery of the Ax Head

¹One day the group of prophets that Elisha was in charge of complained to him, “The place where we live is too small!

²Give us permission to go to the Jordan and cut down some trees, so that we can build a place to live.” “All right,” Elisha answered.

³One of them urged him to go with them; he agreed,

⁴and they set out together. When they arrived at the Jordan, they began to work.

⁵As one of them was cutting down a tree, suddenly his iron ax head fell in the water. “What shall I do, sir?” he exclaimed to Elisha. “It was a borrowed ax!”

⁶“Where did it fall?” Elisha asked. The man showed him the place, and Elisha cut off a stick, threw it in the water, and made the ax head float.

⁷“Take it out,” he ordered, and the man reached down and picked it up.

The Syrian Army Is Defeated

⁸The king of Syria was at war with Israel. He consulted his officers and chose a place to set up his camp.

⁹But Elisha sent word to the king of Israel, warning him not to go near that place, because the Syrians were waiting in ambush there.

¹⁰So the king of Israel warned the people who lived in that place, and they were on guard. This happened several times.

¹¹The Syrian king became greatly upset over this; he called in his officers and asked them, “Which one of you is on the side of the king of Israel?”

¹²One of them answered, “No one is, Your Majesty. The prophet Elisha tells the king of Israel what you say even in the privacy of your own room.”

¹³“Find out where he is,” the king ordered, “and I will capture him.” When he was told that Elisha was in Dothan,

¹⁴he sent a large force there with horses and chariots. They reached the town at night and surrounded it.

¹⁵Early the next morning Elisha's servant got up, went out of the house, and saw the Syrian troops with their horses and chariots surrounding the town. He went back to Elisha and exclaimed, “We are doomed, sir! What shall we do?”

¹⁶“Don't be afraid,” Elisha answered. “We have more on our side than they have on theirs.”

¹⁷Then he prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord answered his prayer, and Elisha's servant looked up and saw the hillside covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

¹⁸When the Syrians attacked, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, strike these men blind!” The Lord answered his prayer and struck them blind.

¹⁹Then Elisha went to them and said, “You are on the wrong road; this is not the town you are looking for. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are after.” And he led them to Samaria.

²⁰As soon as they had entered the city, Elisha prayed, “Open their eyes, Lord, and let them see.” The Lord answered his prayer; he restored their sight, and they saw that they were inside Samaria.

²¹When the king of Israel saw the Syrians, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, sir? Shall I kill them?”

²²“No,” he answered. “Not even soldiers you had captured in combat would you put to death. Give them something to eat and drink, and let them return to their king.”

²³So the king of Israel provided a great feast for them; and after they had eaten and drunk, he sent them back to the king of Syria. From then on the Syrians stopped raiding the land of Israel.

The Siege of Samaria

²⁴Some time later King Benhadad of Syria led his entire army against Israel and laid siege to the city of Samaria.

²⁵As a result of the siege the food shortage in the city was so severe that a donkey's head cost eighty pieces of silver, and half a pound of dove's dung cost five pieces of silver.

²⁶The king of Israel was walking by on the city wall when a woman cried out, “Help me, Your Majesty!”

²⁷He replied, “If the Lord won't help you, what help can I provide? Do I have any wheat or wine?

²⁸What's your trouble?” She answered, “The other day this woman here suggested that we eat my child, and then eat her child the next day.

²⁹So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her that we would eat her son, but she had hidden him!”

³⁰Hearing this, the king tore his clothes in dismay, and the people who were close to the wall could see that he was wearing sackcloth under his clothes.

³¹He exclaimed, “May God strike me dead if Elisha is not beheaded before the day is over!”

³²And he sent a messenger to get Elisha. Meanwhile Elisha was at home with some elders who were visiting him. Before the king's messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “That murderer is sending someone to kill me! Now, when he gets here, shut the door and don't let him come in. The king himself will be right behind him.”

³³He had hardly finished saying this, when the king arrived and said, “It's the Lord who has brought this trouble on us! Why should I wait any longer for him to do something?”

¹Elisha answered, “Listen to what the Lord says! By this time tomorrow you will be able to buy in Samaria ten pounds of the best wheat or twenty pounds of barley for one piece of silver.”

²The personal attendant of the king said to Elisha, “That can't happen—not even if the Lord himself were to send grain at once!” “You will see it happen, but you won't get to eat any of the food,” Elisha replied.

The Syrian Army Leaves

³Four men who were suffering from a dreaded skin disease were outside the gates of Samaria, and they said to each other, “Why should we wait here until we die?

⁴It's no use going into the city, because we would starve to death in there; but if we stay here, we'll die also. So let's go to the Syrian camp; the worst they can do is kill us, but maybe they will spare our lives.”

⁵So, as it began to get dark, they went to the Syrian camp, but when they reached it, no one was there.

⁶The Lord had made the Syrians hear what sounded like the advance of a large army with horses and chariots, and the Syrians thought that the king of Israel had hired Hittite and Egyptian kings and their armies to attack them.

⁷So that evening the Syrians had fled for their lives, abandoning their tents, horses, and donkeys, and leaving the camp just as it was.

⁸When the four men reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank what was there, grabbed the silver, gold, and clothing they found, and went off and hid them; then they returned, entered another tent, and did the same thing.

⁹But then they said to each other, “We shouldn't be doing this! We have good news, and we shouldn't keep it to ourselves. If we wait until morning to tell it, we are sure to be punished. Let's go right now and tell the king's officers!”

¹⁰So they left the Syrian camp, went back to Samaria, and called out to the guards at the gates: “We went to the Syrian camp and didn't see or hear anybody; the horses and donkeys have not been untied, and the tents are just as the Syrians left them.”

¹¹The guards announced the news, and it was reported in the palace.

¹²It was still night, but the king got out of bed and said to his officials, “I'll tell you what the Syrians are planning! They know about the famine here, so they have left their camp to go and hide in the countryside. They think that we will leave the city to find food, and then they will take us alive and capture the city.”

¹³One of his officials said, “The people here in the city are doomed anyway, like those that have already died. So let's send some men with five of the horses that are left, so that we can find out what has happened.”

¹⁴They chose some men, and the king sent them in two chariots with instructions to go and find out what had happened to the Syrian army.

¹⁵The men went as far as the Jordan, and all along the road they saw the clothes and equipment that the Syrians had abandoned as they fled. Then they returned and reported to the king.

¹⁶The people of Samaria rushed out and looted the Syrian camp. And as the Lord had said, ten pounds of the best wheat or twenty pounds of barley were sold for one piece of silver.

¹⁷It so happened that the king of Israel had put the city gate under the command of the officer who was his personal attendant. The officer was trampled to death there by the people and died, as Elisha had predicted when the king went to see him.

¹⁸Elisha had told the king that by that time the following day ten pounds of the best wheat or twenty pounds of barley would be sold in Samaria for one piece of silver,

¹⁹to which the officer had answered, “That can't happen—not even if the Lord himself were to send grain at once!” And Elisha had replied, “You will see it happen, but you won't get to eat any of the food.”

²⁰And that is just what happened to him—he died, trampled to death by the people at the city gate.

The Lord's Accusation against Israel

¹The Lord has an accusation to bring against the people who live in this land. Listen, Israel, to what he says: “There is no faithfulness or love in the land, and the people do not acknowledge me as God.

²They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

³And so the land will dry up, and everything that lives on it will die. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, will die.”

The Lord Accuses the Priests

⁴The Lord says, “Let no one accuse the people or reprimand them—my complaint is against you priests.

⁵Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.

⁶My people are doomed because they do not acknowledge me. You priests have refused to acknowledge me and have rejected my teaching, and so I reject you and will not acknowledge your sons as my priests.

⁷“The more of you priests there are, the more you sin against me, and so I will turn your honor into disgrace.

⁸You grow rich from the sins of my people, and so you want them to sin more and more.

⁹You will suffer the same punishment as the people! I will punish you and make you pay for the evil you do.

¹⁰You will eat your share of the sacrifices, but still be hungry. You will worship the fertility gods, but still have no children, because you have turned away from me to follow other gods.”

The Lord Condemns Pagan Worship

¹¹The Lord says, “Wine, both old and new, is robbing my people of their senses!

¹²They ask for revelations from a piece of wood! A stick tells them what they want to know! They have left me. Like a woman who becomes a prostitute, they have given themselves to other gods.

¹³At sacred places on the mountaintops they offer sacrifices, and on the hills they burn incense under tall, spreading trees, because the shade is so pleasant! “As a result, your daughters serve as prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

¹⁴Yet I will not punish them for this, because you yourselves go off with temple prostitutes, and together with them you offer pagan sacrifices. As the proverb says, ‘A people without sense will be ruined.’

¹⁵“Even though you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, may Judah not be guilty of the same thing. Don't worship at Gilgal or Bethaven, or make promises there in the name of the living Lord.

¹⁶The people of Israel are as stubborn as mules. How can I feed them like lambs in a meadow?

¹⁷The people of Israel are under the spell of idols. Let them go their own way.

¹⁸After drinking much wine, they delight in their prostitution, preferring disgrace to honor.

¹⁹They will be carried away as by the wind, and they will be ashamed of their pagan sacrifices.

¹“Listen to this, you priests! Pay attention, people of Israel! Listen, you that belong to the royal family! You are supposed to judge with justice—so judgment will fall on you! You have become a trap at Mizpah, a net spread on Mount Tabor,

²a deep pit at Acacia City, and I will punish all of you.

³I know what Israel is like—she cannot hide from me. She has been unfaithful, and her people are unfit to worship me.”

Hosea Warns against Idolatry

⁴The evil that the people have done keeps them from returning to their God. Idolatry has a powerful hold on them, and they do not acknowledge the Lord.

⁵The arrogance of the people of Israel cries out against them. Their sins make them stumble and fall, and the people of Judah fall with them.

⁶They take their sheep and cattle to offer as sacrifices to the Lord, but it does them no good. They cannot find him, for he has left them.

⁷They have been unfaithful to the Lord; their children do not belong to him. So now they and their lands will soon be destroyed.

War between Judah and Israel

⁸Blow the war trumpets in Gibeah! Sound the alarm in Ramah! Raise the war cry at Bethaven! Into battle, men of Benjamin!

⁹The day of punishment is coming, and Israel will be ruined. People of Israel, this will surely happen!

¹⁰The Lord says, “I am angry because the leaders of Judah have invaded Israel and stolen land from her. So I will pour out punishment on them like a flood.

¹¹Israel is suffering oppression; she has lost land that was rightfully hers, because she insisted on going for help to those who had none to give.

¹²I will bring destruction on Israel and ruin on the people of Judah.

¹³“When Israel saw how sick she was and when Judah saw her own wounds, then Israel went to Assyria to ask the great emperor for help, but he could not cure them or heal their wounds.

¹⁴I will attack the people of Israel and Judah like a lion. I myself will tear them to pieces and then leave them. When I drag them off, no one will be able to save them.

¹⁵“I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me.”

The People's Insincere Repentance

¹The people say, “Let's return to the Lord! He has hurt us, but he will be sure to heal us; he has wounded us, but he will bandage our wounds, won't he?

²In two or three days he will revive us, and we will live in his presence.

³Let us try to know the Lord. He will come to us as surely as the day dawns, as surely as the spring rains fall upon the earth.”

⁴But the Lord says, “Israel and Judah, what am I going to do with you? Your love for me disappears as quickly as morning mist; it is like dew, that vanishes early in the day.

⁵That is why I have sent my prophets to you with my message of judgment and destruction. What I want from you is plain and clear:

⁶I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me.

⁷“But as soon as they entered the land at Adam, they broke the covenant I had made with them.

⁸Gilead is a city full of evil people and murderers.

⁹The priests are like a gang of robbers who wait in ambush for someone. Even on the road to the holy place at Shechem they commit murder. And they do all this evil deliberately!

¹⁰I have seen a horrible thing in Israel: my people have defiled themselves by worshiping idols.

¹¹“And as for you, people of Judah, I have set a time to punish you also for what you are doing.

¹“Whenever I want to heal my people Israel and make them prosperous again, all I can see is their wickedness and the evil they do. They cheat one another; they break into houses and steal; they rob people in the streets.

²It never enters their heads that I will remember all this evil; but their sins surround them, and I cannot avoid seeing them.”

Conspiracy in the Palace

³The Lord says, “People deceive the king and his officers by their evil plots.

⁴They are all treacherous and disloyal. Their hatred smolders like the fire in an oven, which is not stirred by the baker until the dough is ready to bake.

⁵On the day of the king's celebration they made the king and his officials drunk and foolish with wine.

⁶Yes, they burned like an oven with their plotting. All night their anger smoldered, and in the morning it burst into flames.

⁷“In the heat of their anger they murdered their rulers. Their kings have been assassinated one after another, but no one prays to me for help.”

Israel and the Nations

⁸The Lord says, “The people of Israel are like a half-baked loaf of bread. They rely on the nations around them

⁹and do not realize that this reliance on foreigners has robbed them of their strength. Their days are numbered, but they don't even know it.

¹⁰The arrogance of the people of Israel cries out against them. In spite of everything that has happened, they have not returned to me, the Lord their God.

¹¹Israel flits around like a silly pigeon; first her people call on Egypt for help, and then they run to Assyria!

¹²But I will spread out a net and catch them like birds as they go by. I will punish them for the evil they have done.

¹³“They are doomed! They have left me and rebelled against me. They will be destroyed. I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false.

¹⁴They have not prayed to me sincerely, but instead they throw themselves down and wail as the heathen do. When they pray for grain and wine, they gash themselves like pagans. What rebels they are!

¹⁵Even though I was the one who brought them up and made them strong, they plotted against me.

¹⁶They keep on turning away from me to a god that is powerless. They are as unreliable as a crooked bow. Because their leaders talk arrogantly, they will die a violent death, and the Egyptians will laugh.”

The Love of God

¹Praise the Lord, my soul! All my being, praise his holy name!

²Praise the Lord, my soul, and do not forget how kind he is.

³He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.

⁴He keeps me from the grave and blesses me with love and mercy.

⁵He fills my life with good things, so that I stay young and strong like an eagle.

⁶The Lord judges in favor of the oppressed and gives them their rights.

⁷He revealed his plans to Moses and let the people of Israel see his mighty deeds.

⁸The Lord is merciful and loving, slow to become angry and full of constant love.

⁹He does not keep on rebuking; he is not angry forever.

¹⁰He does not punish us as we deserve or repay us according to our sins and wrongs.

¹¹As high as the sky is above the earth, so great is his love for those who honor him.

¹²As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our sins from us.

¹³As a father is kind to his children, so the Lord is kind to those who honor him.

¹⁴He knows what we are made of; he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵As for us, our life is like grass. We grow and flourish like a wild flower;

¹⁶then the wind blows on it, and it is gone— no one sees it again.

¹⁷But for those who honor the Lord, his love lasts forever, and his goodness endures for all generations

¹⁸of those who are true to his covenant and who faithfully obey his commands.

¹⁹The Lord placed his throne in heaven; he is king over all.

²⁰Praise the Lord, you strong and mighty angels, who obey his commands, who listen to what he says.

²¹Praise the Lord, all you heavenly powers, you servants of his, who do his will!

²²Praise the Lord, all his creatures in all the places he rules. Praise the Lord, my soul!