Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 223
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| 17:8–18:4
SAMUEL–KINGS
211
Then the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath,
near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.”
So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw
a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, “Would you please bring me
a little water in a cup?” As she was going to get it, he called to her, “Bring
me a bite of bread, too.”
But she said, “I swear by the Lord your God that I don’t have a single
piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar
and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few
sticks to cook this last meal, and then my son and I will die.”
But Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you’ve
said, but make a little bread for me first. Then use what’s left to prepare
a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of
Israel, says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers
until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!”
So she did as Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her family continued to
eat for many days. There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the
containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.
Some time later the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and
worse, and finally he died. Then she said to Elijah, “O man of God, what
have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill
my son?”
But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.” And he took the child’s body
from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying,
and laid the body on his bed. Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord
my God, why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her
home to me, causing her son to die?”
And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out
to the Lord, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s life return to him.”
The Lord heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he
revived! Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave
him to his mother. “Look!” he said. “Your son is alive!”
Then the woman told Elijah, “Now I know for sure that you are a man
of God, and that the Lord truly speaks through you.”
Later on, in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, “Go
and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain!” So
Elijah went to appear before Ahab.
Meanwhile, the famine had become very severe in Samaria. So Ahab
summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Obadiah was a
devoted follower of the Lord. Once when Jezebel had tried to kill all the
Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had hidden 100 of them in two caves. He put