Thursday in Season after Pentecost

8Verse 8. One day Elisha went to Shunem, and a prominent woman who lived there persuaded him to have a meal. So whenever he would pass by, he would stop there to eat. 9Verse 9. Then the woman said to her husband, “Behold, now I know that the one who often comes our way is a holy man of God. 10Verse 10. Please let us make a small room upstairs and put in it a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp for him. Then when he comes to us, he can stay there.” 11Verse 11. One day Elisha came to visit and went to his upper room to lie down. 12Verse 12. And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the Shunammite woman.” And when he had called her, she stood before him, 13Verse 13. and Elisha said to Gehazi, “Now tell her, ‘Look, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can we do for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’” “I have a home among my own people,” she replied. 14Verse 14. So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?” “Well, she has no son,” Gehazi replied, “and her husband is old.” 15Verse 15. “Call her,” said Elisha. So Gehazi called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16Verse 16. And Elisha declared, “At this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms.” “No, my lord,” she said. “Do not lie to your maidservant, O man of God.” 17Verse 17. But the woman did conceive, and at that time the next year she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.

1Verse 1. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2Verse 2. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD by following the abominations of the nations that the LORD had driven out before the Israelites. 3Verse 3. For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, and he raised up altars for Baal. He made an Asherah pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, and he worshiped and served all the host of heaven. 4Verse 4. Manasseh also built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My Name.” 5Verse 5. In both courtyards of the house of the LORD, he built altars to all the host of heaven. 6Verse 6. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking Him to anger. 7Verse 7. Manasseh even took the carved Asherah pole he had made and set it up in the temple, of which the LORD had said to David and his son Solomon, “In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will establish My Name forever. 8Verse 8. I will never again cause the feet of the Israelites to wander from the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they are careful to do all I have commanded them— the whole Law that My servant Moses commanded them.” 9Verse 9. But the people did not listen and Manasseh led them astray, so that they did greater evil than the nations that the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites. 10Verse 10. And the LORD spoke through His servants the prophets, saying, 11Verse 11. “Since Manasseh king of Judah has committed all these abominations, acting more wickedly than the Amorites who preceded him, and with his idols has caused Judah to sin, 12Verse 12. this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity upon Jerusalem and Judah that the news will reverberate in the ears of all who hear it. 13Verse 13. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab, and I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a bowl— wiping it and turning it upside down. 14Verse 14. So I will forsake the remnant of My inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. And they will become plunder and spoil to all their enemies, 15Verse 15. because they have done evil in My sight and have provoked Me to anger from the day their fathers came out of Egypt until this day.’”