1And Elijah the Tishbite, an inhabitant of Gilead, said to Ahab, “
As the
Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand,
there certainly will not be any dew or rain for the coming years, but
it will be according to my word.”
2And the word of the
Lord came to him and said,
3“Depart from here and turn to the east, and hide at the Cherith Brook which
is alongside the Jordan.
4And it will come to pass
that you will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to sustain you there.”
5So he departed according to the word of the
Lord, and he went
away and stayed at the Cherith Brook which
is alongside the Jordan.
6And the ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
7And it came to pass after
several days that the brook dried up, for there had been no rain in the land.
8And the word of the
Lord came to him and said,
9“Arise
and go to Zarephath, which
is subservient to Sidon, and stay there. Look, I have instructed a widow there to sustain you.”
10So he arose and went to Zarephath, and he arrived at the entrance to the city, and what
he saw
was a widow there gathering wood, and he called out to her and said, “Please get me a little water in a cup for me to drink.”
11Then as she went to get
it, he called out to her, “Please bring a piece of bread for me with you.”
12And she said, “
As the
Lord your God lives, I certainly do not have
any cake, except a handful of flour in a jar, and a little oil in a jug, and you see that I
am gathering a couple of sticks, so that I
can go and prepare it for myself and for my son, so we
can eat it and die.”
13Then Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go
off and do what you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring
it out to me, and afterwards make
something for yourself and your son.
14For this
is what the
Lord God of Israel says: ‘The jar of flour will not become exhausted, and the jug of oil will not run out, before the
Lord gives rain over the ground.’ ”
15Then she went and did according to Elijah's words, and she and he and her household ate
from it for
many days.
16The jar of flour did not become exhausted, and the jug of oil did not run out, according with the word of the
Lord which he spoke through the intermediacy of Elijah.
17Then it came to pass after these things
that the son of the woman
who was the mistress of the household became ill, and his illness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.
18And she said to Elijah, “What
have I
got to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to kill my son?”
19And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her bosom, and he took him up to the upstairs room where he stayed, and he laid him on his bed.
20And he called on the
Lord and said, “O
Lord my God, have you really done harm to the widow with whom I am lodging, by killing her son?”
21And he stretched out over the child three times, and he called out to the
Lord and said, “O
Lord my God, please may the life of this child return within him.”
22And the
Lord heeded Elijah, and the child's life returned within him, and he lived.
23Then Elijah took
hold of the child and brought him down from the upstairs room into the
main house, and he gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “Look, your son
is alive.”
24And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I really know that you are a man of God, and the word of the
Lord in your mouth
is true.”
Reference(s) in Chapter 17: v.1 ↔ Revelation 11:6 ● v.9 ↔ Luke 4:26.