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)

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)

¹⁵ “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human,^(A) like you. We are bringing you good news,^(B) telling you to turn from these worthless things^(C) to the living God,^(D) who made the heavens and the earth^(E) and the sea and everything in them.^(F)

⁶ They have power to shut up the heavens^(A) so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying;^(B) and they have power to turn the waters into blood^(C) and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.