¹³ So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three^[a] years of famine^(A) in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague^(B) in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”

¹² three years of famine,^(A) three months of being swept away^[a] before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword^(B) of the Lord^(C)—days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.’ Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”

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.”

Elijah Fed by Ravens

² Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: ³ “Leave here, turn eastward and hide^(D) in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. ⁴ You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens^(E) to supply you with food there.”

⁵ So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning^(F) and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

Elijah and the Widow at Zarephath

⁷ Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

The Gibeonites Avenged

21 During the reign of David, there was a famine^(A) for three successive years; so David sought^(B) the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

²⁵ And I will bring the sword^(A) on you to avenge^(B) the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague^(C) among you, and you will be given into enemy hands.

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)

¹⁹ “Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out my wrath^(A) on it through bloodshed,^(B) killing its people and their animals,^{(C) 20} as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could save neither son nor daughter. They would save only themselves by their righteousness.^(D)

²¹ “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments^(E)—sword^(F) and famine^(G) and wild beasts and plague^(H)—to kill its men and their animals!^(I)

¹³ “Son of man, if a country sins^(A) against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply^(B) and send famine upon it and kill its people and their animals,^(C)

⁵² They will lay siege^(A) to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the Lord your God is giving you.^(B)