Stories of Elijah and Ahab

Chapter 17

Elijah Predicts a Drought.^{[a] 1} Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, there shall be no dew or rain these years except at my word.”

² Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, ³ “Go forth from here and go eastward to the Wadi Kerith near the Jordan and hide there. ⁴ You can drink from the brook there, and I have commanded the ravens there to feed you.” ⁵ So he went and did what the Lord had said, and he dwelt in the Wadi Kerith near the Jordan. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi.

⁷ After some time the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the land. ⁸ The word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹ “Arise and go to Zarephath^[b] which belongs to Sidon and live there. I have commanded a woman there who is a widow to take care of you.”

¹⁰ So he arose and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the gate to the city, there was a woman there who was a widow. She was gathering sticks, and he called out to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a jar so that I can have something to drink.”

¹¹ As she went to get it for him, he called out to her and said, “Please also bring me a bit of bread in your hand.” ¹² But she said to him, “As the Lord, your God, lives, I do not have any bread. I only have a handful of flour in a jar and a little bit of oil in a jug. I am gathering two sticks so that I can prepare it for myself and my son so that we can eat it and die.”

¹³ Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go and do what you have said, but first make a small piece of bread and bring it to me. Afterwards, you can make some for yourself and your son. ¹⁴ For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour will not be used up, the jug of oil will not go dry, up until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ ”

¹⁵ She went and did what Elijah had told her to do. She, and he, and her household ate for a long time. ¹⁶ The jar of flour was not used up, and the jug of oil did not go dry, just as the word of the Lord had foretold through Elijah.

¹⁷ Elijah Restores Life to the Widow’s Son.^[c] After these things happened, the son of the woman who owned the house fell ill. The illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

¹⁸ She said to Elijah, “What do I have to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to make me remember my sins,^[d] and to put my son to death?” ¹⁹ He said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her lap and carried him to the upper room, and he laid him upon his own bed. ²⁰ He called out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, have you brought disaster upon the widow with whom I am living by killing her son?” ²¹ He stretched himself out upon the boy three times, and he cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, may this child’s life return to him.”

²² The Lord heard Elijah’s voice, and the child’s life returned to him and he revived. ²³ Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and handed him over to his mother saying, “See, your son is alive.” ²⁴ The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of God that is in your mouth is true.”