1 When the LORD was going to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were setting out from Gilgal.
2 Elijah told Elisha, "Stay here, please; the LORD has sent me on to Bethel." But Elisha said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel.
3 The sons of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked him, "Are you aware that the LORD is taking your master from over you today?" "I am aware of it," he said. "Say nothing."
4 Elijah told him, "Elisha, stay here, please; the LORD has sent me on to Jericho." He said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So they went to Jericho.
5 The sons of the prophets at Jericho approached Elisha and asked him, "Are you aware that the LORD is taking your master from over you today?" "I am aware of it," he said. "Say nothing."
6 Elijah told him, "Stay here, please; the LORD has sent me on to the Jordan." He said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So the two of them went on together.
7 Fifty of the sons of the prophets went along and stood some distance away, facing them, while the two stood beside the Jordan.
8 Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water parted this way and that, and the two of them went across on dry ground.
9 After they had crossed, Elijah told Elisha, "Ask what I may do for you before I am taken away from you." Elisha said, "Let me have, please, a double portion of your spirit."
10 "What you ask is difficult," he said. "If you see me as I am taken from you, you will have it; if not, you will not."
11 As they kept walking along, talking, a chariot of fire with horses of fire suddenly came between the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in the whirlwind.
12 Elisha watched and kept crying out, "My father, my father! Israel's chariots and horsemen!" Then he saw him no more. He seized his own clothes and ripped them in two.
13 He picked up Elijah's cloak, which had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
14 Taking the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him, he struck the water and said, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" When he too struck the water, it parted this way and that, and Elisha went across.
15 The sons of the prophets from Jericho, watching from the other side, said, "Elijah's spirit has settled on Elisha." They came to meet him and bowed to the ground in front of him.
16 They told him, "Look, among your servants are fifty capable men. Please let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has picked him up and dropped him on some mountain or in some valley." "Do not send them," he said.
17 But they kept pressing him until he was ashamed, and he said, "Send them." They sent fifty men, who looked for three days without finding him.
18 They came back to him at Jericho, where he was staying, and he told them, "Did I not tell you not to go?"
19 The men of the town told Elisha, "Please notice: this town is well situated, as my lord can see, but the water is bad and the land causes miscarriages."
20 "Bring me a new bowl," he said, "and put salt in it." They brought it to him.
21 He went out to the source of the water, threw the salt in, and said, "This is what the LORD says: 'I have healed this water. Never again will death or miscarriage come from it.'"
22 And the water has stayed healed to this day, as Elisha had said.
23 From there he went up to Bethel. As he was going up the road, young boys came out of the town and jeered at him: "Go on up, baldy! Go on up, baldy!"
24 He turned around, looked at them and cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
25 From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he went back to Samaria.