Elijah Announces a Great Drought

17 Now Elijah^(A) the Tishbite, from Tishbe^[a] in Gilead,^(B) said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain^(C) in the next few years except at my word.”

¹⁷ Elijah was a human being, even as we are.^(A) He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.^(B)

²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.^{(A) 26} Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.^(B)

¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord,^(A) in the spirit and power of Elijah,^(B) to turn the hearts of the parents to their children^(C) and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”^(D)

¹⁴ But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me.”^(A)