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Elijah the Tishbite, an inhabitant of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I stand here for, there will be neither dew nor rain these years, except at my word.”
2 The word of the Lord came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the wadi, and I have commanded to the ravens to feed you there.”
5 So Elijah did what the Lord had commanded him. He went to the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi. 7 But after a while the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Arise and go at once to Zarephath of Sidon, and stay there. I have commanded a woman who is a widow to supply you with food there.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the city, a widowed woman was there gathering sticks. He called out to her and said, “Please fetch me a little water in a cup and let me drink.” 11 As she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.”
12 But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I don’t have anything baked—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am just gathering a few sticks to take home so can prepare it for me and my son, so we may eat it, and die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake for me from what you have and bring it out to me. Then you may make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not become empty, nor will the jug of oil run dry, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the land’.”
15 So she went away and did as Elijah said. And there was food for Elijah, and for the woman and her household for many days. 16 The jar of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken through Elijah.
17 Now some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. His illness became worse and worse, until there was no breath left in him. 18 She said to the Elijah, “What have you got against me, O man of God? Have you come to me to remind me of my sin and to kill my son?”
19 But Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” Then he took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord,
“O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy upon this widow I am staying with, by killing her son?”
21 Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times, and cried out to the Lord,
“O Lord my God, please let this child’s life come back to him.”
22 The Lord heard Elijah’s plea, and the boy’s life returned back to him, and he revived. 23 Then Elijah picked up the boy and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.”
24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is the truth.”