The life of St Elisha
When the day came for Elijah to be taken from this world, Elisha asked to receive a double share of his teacher's prophetic spirit; as the two walked together a fiery chariot and horses appeared between them, and Elijah was carried up in a whirlwind, leaving his mantle behind for Elisha to take up. Striking the Jordan's waters with it, Elisha found them part before him just as they had for his teacher, a sign that what he had asked for had indeed been granted.
For more than sixty years afterward, across the reigns of several kings of Israel, Elisha carried on a ministry marked by many wonders: he made a poisoned spring at Jericho fit to drink again, and in a barren wilderness he brought forth water to save the armies of two allied kings from dying of thirst. He was buried at last in Samaria, later called Sebaste, and Scripture records that even after his death, the touch of his bones was enough to restore a dead man laid briefly in his tomb to life.
