Fire on Mount Carmel

Elijah the Tishbite, one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “I serve the Lord, the God of Israel. As surely as he lives, there will be no dew and no rain in the years ahead, except when I say so.”

Then a message came to Elijah from the Lord: “Go away from here and turn east. Hide by the brook Cherith, by the Jordan. You can drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.”

So Elijah did as the Lord said. He went and lived by the brook Cherith, by the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

After a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. At the gate of the town there was a widow gathering sticks. He called out to her, “Please get me a little water in a jar to drink.”

As she was going to get it, he called after her, “And please bring me a little bread too.”

She answered, “As surely as the Lord your God lives, I don’t have anything baked. All I have is a jar with a handful of flour in it, and a jar with a little oil. Look, I’m gathering two sticks so I can go inside and bake it for my son and me. We will eat it, and then we will die.”

“Don’t be afraid,” Elijah told her. “Go and do as you said. But first make me a little cake from it and bring it out to me. Then make some for yourself and your son. The Lord, the God of Israel, says this: ‘The flour in the jar won’t run out, and the oil in the jar won’t give out, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’”

She went and did what Elijah told her, and for many days she and Elijah and her household had food to eat. The flour in the jar didn’t run out, and the oil in the jar didn’t give out, just as the Lord had said through Elijah.

“What do you want with me, man of God?” she said to Elijah. “You came here to remind me of my sin and to kill my son!”

“Give me your son,” said Elijah. He lifted the boy out of her arms, carried him up to the room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed.

Elijah cried out to the Lord. “Lord my God,” he said, “have you also brought harm on the widow I’m staying with, by killing her son?”

Three times he stretched himself out on top of the child, and he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, please let this child’s life come back into him!”

The Lord listened to Elijah’s voice, and the child’s life came back into him. He was alive again.

Elijah brought the child down from the room into the house and gave him back to his mother. “See,” Elijah said, “your son is alive.”

The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the Lord’s word you speak is true.”

So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. In Samaria the famine was terrible.

Ahab called Obadiah, the man in charge of his household. Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. Back when Jezebel was putting the Lord’s prophets to death, Obadiah had hidden a hundred of them, fifty in each cave, and fed them bread and water.

Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land, to every spring and every brook. Perhaps we can find grass and keep the horses and mules alive, so we don’t lose all our animals.” So they divided the land between them to go through all of it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.

As Obadiah was on his way, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed with his face to the ground, and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?”

“It is,” Elijah answered. “Go and tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’”

“What wrong have I done?” Obadiah said. “Why would you hand me over to Ahab to be killed? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my master hasn’t sent people to look for you. Whenever they said, ‘He isn’t here,’ he made that kingdom and nation take an oath that they hadn’t found you. And now you tell me, ‘Go and tell your master, “Elijah is here.”’

“As soon as I leave you, the Lord’s Spirit will carry you off, I don’t know where. Then, when I come and tell Ahab and he can’t find you, he will kill me. And yet I have feared the Lord since I was young. My lord, didn’t anyone tell you what I did when Jezebel killed the Lord’s prophets? I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets, fifty in each cave, and fed them bread and water. Now you tell me, ‘Go and tell your master, “Elijah is here.”’ He will kill me!”

Elijah said, “I serve the Lord of Armies. As surely as he lives, I will certainly show myself to Ahab today.”

So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

“I have not troubled Israel,” Elijah answered. “You and your father’s family have, because you have turned away from the Lord’s commandments and followed the Baals. Now send word, and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel. Bring Baal’s four hundred fifty prophets too, and the four hundred prophets of the Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

So Ahab sent word to all the people of Israel, and he gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel.

Elijah came up to all the people and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if it is Baal, then follow him.” The people didn’t say a word.

Then Elijah said to the people, “Of all the Lord’s prophets, I am the only one left, but Baal’s prophets are four hundred fifty men. So let them give us two bulls. They can pick one bull for themselves, cut it up, and lay it on the wood, without lighting any fire under it. I will get the other bull ready and lay it on the wood, and I won’t light a fire under it either. Then you call out to your god by name, and I will call out to the Lord by name. The God who answers by fire, let him be God.”

And all the people answered, “What you say is good.”

So they took the bull they were given and got it ready. Then from morning until noon they called out to Baal, “Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice, and nobody answered. They leaped around the altar that had been made.

At noon Elijah mocked them. “Shout out loud!” he said. “He’s a god, after all. Maybe he is deep in thought, or he has gone off somewhere, or he is on a journey. Or maybe he’s asleep and has to be woken up!”

So they shouted louder, and they cut themselves with knives and lances, the way they usually did, until the blood gushed out over them.

Noon came and went, and they kept on prophesying until the time of the evening offering. But there was no voice, no answer, and no one paid any attention.

Elijah took twelve stones, one for each tribe of the sons of Jacob. Long before, the Lord had said to Jacob, “Israel will be your name.” With the stones he built an altar in the Lord’s name. Around the altar he dug a trench big enough to hold two seahs of seed, almost four gallons.

He stacked the wood, cut up the bull, and laid it on the wood. Then he said, “Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.”

“Do it a second time,” he said, and they did it a second time. “Do it a third time,” he said, and they did it a third time.

The water ran around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water.

At the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant, and that I did all these things because you told me to. Hear me, Lord, hear me, so that these people may know that you, the Lord, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again.”

Then the Lord’s fire fell. It burned up the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.

When all the people saw it, they bowed with their faces to the ground. “The Lord, he is God!” they cried out. “The Lord, he is God!”

Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Don’t let one of them escape!” They seized them, and Elijah took them down to the brook Kishon and killed them there.

So Ahab went up to eat and drink. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, bowed down to the earth, and put his face between his knees.

He said to his servant, “Go up now and look toward the sea.”

The servant went up and looked. “There’s nothing,” he said.

Seven times Elijah told him, “Go again.”

The seventh time, the servant said, “Look, a small cloud, like a man’s hand, is rising out of the sea.”

Elijah said, “Go up and tell Ahab, ‘Get ready and go down, so that the rain doesn’t stop you.’”

In a little while the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and heavy rain fell. Ahab rode off to Jezreel.

The Lord’s hand was on Elijah, and he tucked his cloak into his belt and ran in front of Ahab as far as the entrance of Jezreel.