Elisha ¹  told Gehazi, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take my staff, ²  and go! Don’t stop to exchange greetings with anyone! ³  Place my staff on the child’s face.”

He met ¹  Asa and told him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you when you are loyal to him. ²  If you seek him, he will respond to you, ³  but if you reject him, he will reject you.

I saw ¹  a wall all around the outside of the temple. ²  In the man’s hand was a measuring stick 10½ feet ³  long. He measured the thickness of the wall ⁴  as 10½ feet, ⁵  and its height as 10½ feet.

I am with you! ¹  I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!”

This is how you are to eat it – dressed to travel, ¹  your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. ² 

and then ¹  if he gets up and walks about ²  outside on his staff, then the one who struck him is innocent, except he must pay ³  for the injured person’s ⁴  loss of time ⁵  and see to it that he is fully healed.

For if you carefully observe all of these commandments ¹  I am giving you ²  and love the Lord your God, live according to his standards, ³  and remain loyal to him,

Samson went and captured three hundred jackals ¹  and got some torches. He tied the jackals in pairs by their tails and then tied a torch to each pair. ² 

So Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.” Jonathan told him, “I used the end of the staff that was in my hand to taste a little honey. I must die!” ¹ 

Please forgive the sin of your servant, for the Lord will certainly establish the house of my lord, because my lord fights the battles of the Lord. May no evil be found in you all your days!

I will not take the whole kingdom from his hand. I will allow him to be ruler for the rest of his life for the sake of my chosen servant David who kept my commandments and rules.

Now Gehazi went on ahead of them. He placed the staff on the child’s face, but there was no sound or response. When he came back to Elisha ¹  he told him, “The child did not wake up.”

Sow your seed in the morning, and do not stop working ¹  until the evening; ²  for you do not know which activity ³  will succeed ⁴  – whether this one or that one, or whether both will prosper equally. ⁵ 

Your officials are rebels, ¹  they associate with ²  thieves. All of them love bribery, and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴  They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵  or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

I will make justice the measuring line, fairness the plumb line; hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, ¹  the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place.

He feeds on ashes; ¹  his deceived mind misleads him. He cannot rescue himself, nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ ² 

Gather together and come! Approach together, you refugees from the nations! Those who carry wooden idols know nothing, those who pray to a god that cannot deliver.

All these idolaters ¹  will prove to be stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made. For the image he forges is merely a sham. ²  There is no breath in any of those idols. ³ 

I will make a lasting covenant ¹  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ²  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ³  they will never again turn ⁴  away from me.

All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant. Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made. For the image he forges is merely a sham. There is no breath in any of those idols.