² Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens^(A) had been closed, and the rain^(B) had stopped falling from the sky.

¹⁷ Then the Lord’s anger^(A) will burn against you, and he will shut up^(B) the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce,^(C) and you will soon perish^(D) from the good land the Lord is giving you.

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.”

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)