Wisdom Bestows Well-Being

The Transfiguration^(A)(B)

17 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John^(C) the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ² There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. ³ Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

⁴ Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.^(D) Listen to him!”^(E)

⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”^(F)

²⁴ “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.^{(A) 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.^{(B) 26} Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.^{(C) 27} And there were many in Israel with leprosy^[a] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”^(D)

²⁸ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. ²⁹ They got up, drove him out of the town,^(E) and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. ³⁰ But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.^(F)

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.

¹⁷ Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. ¹⁸ She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin^(A) and kill my son?”

¹⁹ “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. ²⁰ Then he cried^(B) out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” ²¹ Then he stretched^(C) himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

²² The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. ²³ Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother^(D) and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

²⁴ Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know^(E) that you are a man of God^(F) and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”^(G)