16. They then said, “We’re at your service. We have fifty reliable men here; let’s send them out to look for your master. Maybe God’s spirit has swept him off to some mountain or dropped him into a remote ravine.”Elisha said, “No. Don’t send them.”
17. But they pestered him until he caved in: “Go ahead then. Send them.”So they sent the fifty men off. For three days they looked, searching high and low. Nothing.
18. Finally, they returned to Elisha in Jericho. He told them, “So there—didn’t I tell you?”
19. One day the men of the city said to Elisha, “You can see for yourself, master, how well our city is located. But the water is polluted and nothing grows.”