18. Then they returned to him while he was staying in Jericho. He said to them, “Did I not tell you not to go?”
19. The men of the city said to Elisha, “Please now, the location of the city is good, as my master can see, but the water is bad and the land unproductive.”
20. So he said, “Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21. Then he went out to the spring of waters and threw the salt into it there and said, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘I hereby purify these waters; let there be no longer any death or unproductiveness from it.’ ”
22. Then the waters were purified until this very day according to the word of Elisha that he spoke.
23. Then he went up from there to Bethel; as he was going up along the way, young boys came out from the city and mocked at him and said to him, “Go up, baldhead; go up, baldhead!”
24. When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of Yahweh. Then two bears came out of the forest and mauled forty-two boys among them.
25. Then he went from there to Mount Carmel and from there he returned to Samaria.