³⁰ Ahab son of Omri did more^(A) evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.

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.”

¹⁰ So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?”^{(A) 11} As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

¹² “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil^(B) in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

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)