⁴⁵ In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain. Ahab rode off and went to Jezreel.

¹⁸ So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.^(A)

¹⁹ All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God for your servants, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins the evil of demanding a king for ourselves.”^(B)

⁹ Then all the people of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days; it was the ninth month, on the twentieth day of the month. All the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the heavy rain.^(A)

¹⁰ Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies^[a] by day or the wild animals by night.^(A)

¹⁸ Tomorrow at this time I will cause the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.^{(A) 19} Send, therefore, and have your livestock and everything that you have in the open field brought to a secure place; every human or animal that is in the open field and is not brought under shelter will die when the hail comes down upon them.’ ” ²⁰ Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the Lord hurried their slaves and livestock off to a secure place,^{(B) 21} but those who did not regard the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the open field.

²² The Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that hail may fall on the whole land of Egypt, on humans and animals and all the plants of the field in the land of Egypt.”^{(C) 23} Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and fire came down on the earth. And the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt;^{(D) 24} there was hail with fire flashing continually in the midst of it, such heavy hail as had never fallen in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. ²⁵ The hail struck down everything that was in the open field throughout all the land of Egypt, both human and animal; the hail also struck down all the plants of the field and shattered every tree in the field.^(E)