This haftarah opens with a widow appealing to the prophet Elisha because her late husband's creditor is about to take her two sons as slaves for an unpaid debt. Elisha instructs her to borrow as many empty vessels as she can from her neighbors and pour her single remaining jug of oil into them, and the oil miraculously keeps flowing until every borrowed vessel is full, enough for her to sell and pay the debt and support her family on what remains.
The haftarah then turns to a wealthy woman of Shunem who regularly hosts Elisha and, at his instruction, builds a small room for him to stay in during his travels. In gratitude, Elisha promises her a son despite her age and her husband's, a promise fulfilled within the year exactly as he had said. Some years later the boy dies suddenly of an apparent illness in the field, and the woman rushes to Elisha, refusing to leave without him.
The haftarah closes with Elisha reviving the boy, stretching himself over the child's body until warmth returns and the boy sneezes seven times and opens his eyes, restored to his mother alive.
Both episodes in this haftarah turn on a woman's direct, urgent appeal to a prophet on behalf of her children, first the widow facing her sons' enslavement for debt, then the Shunammite refusing to leave without her son's life restored, giving the whole passage a consistent focus on maternal advocacy answered through prophetic power.