1 Kings 17

¹1 Kings 17:1. Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was among the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain in these years except at my word!”²1 Kings 17:2. Then a revelation from the LORD came to Elijah:³1 Kings 17:3. “Leave here, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan.⁴1 Kings 17:4. And you are to drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”⁵1 Kings 17:5. So Elijah did what the LORD had told him, and he went and lived by the Brook of Cherith, east of the Jordan.⁶1 Kings 17:6. The ravens would bring him bread and meat in the morning and evening, and he would drink from the brook.⁷1 Kings 17:7. Some time later, however, the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

⁸1 Kings 17:8. Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah:⁹1 Kings 17:9. “Get up and go to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”¹⁰1 Kings 17:10. So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks. Elijah called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, so that I may drink.”¹¹1 Kings 17:11. And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread.”¹²1 Kings 17:12. But she replied, “As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have no bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. Look, I am gathering a couple of sticks to take home and prepare a meal for myself and my son, so that we may eat it and die.”¹³1 Kings 17:13. “Do not be afraid,” Elijah said to her. “Go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake of bread from what you have, and bring it out to me. Afterward, make some for yourself and your son,¹⁴1 Kings 17:14. for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be exhausted and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain upon the face of the earth.’”¹⁵1 Kings 17:15. So she went and did according to the word of Elijah, and there was food every day for Elijah and the woman and her household.¹⁶1 Kings 17:16. The jar of flour was not exhausted and the jug of oil did not run dry, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through Elijah.

¹⁷1 Kings 17:17. Later, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill, and his sickness grew worse and worse, until no breath remained in him.¹⁸1 Kings 17:18. “O man of God,” said the woman to Elijah, “what have you done to me? Have you come to remind me of my iniquity and cause the death of my son?”¹⁹1 Kings 17:19. But Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed.²⁰1 Kings 17:20. Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have You also brought tragedy on this widow who has opened her home to me, by causing her son to die?”²¹1 Kings 17:21. Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, please let this boy’s life return to him!”²²1 Kings 17:22. And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah, and the child’s life returned to him, and he lived.²³1 Kings 17:23. Then Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. “Look, your son is alive,” Elijah declared.²⁴1 Kings 17:24. Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is truth.”