1 Kings 17

17 ¹ Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As surely as our Father, the God of Israel, lives — before whom I stand — there will be neither dew nor rain in these years, except at my word."

² Then the word of our Father came to Elijah:

³ "Leave this place, turn eastward, and hide yourself by the Brook Cherith, east of the Jordan." ⁴ "You will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."

⁵ So he went and did according to the word of our Father; he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. ⁷ After a while the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

The Father Provides Through a Widow

⁸ Then the word of our Father came to him:

⁹ "Get up, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there. I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."

¹⁰ So he got up and went to Zarephath. When he came to the entrance of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a jar, so I may 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 as well."

¹² But she said, "As surely as the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked — only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a flask. See, I am gathering a few sticks to go in and prepare it for myself and my son, so we may eat it and then die."

¹³ Elijah said to her, "Do not be afraid. Go and do as you have said, but first make me a small loaf from it and bring it out to me; afterward make some for yourself and your son."

¹⁴ For this is what our Father, the God of Israel, says: "The jar of flour will not run out, and the flask of oil will not run dry, until the day our Father sends rain on the face of the land."

¹⁵ She went and did as Elijah had said, and she and Elijah and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶ The jar of flour was not used up and the flask of oil did not run dry, according to the word of our Father spoken through Elijah.

The Father Restores the Widow's Son

¹⁷ Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. His illness grew so severe that no breath was left in him. ¹⁸ She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Have you come to remind me of my sin and to kill my son?"

¹⁹ "Give me your son," he said. Then he took him from her arms, carried him up to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰ He cried out to our Father, "My Father, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by killing her son?" ²¹ Then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to our Father, "My Father, let this child's life return to him."

²² Our Father heard Elijah's cry, and the child's life returned to him, and he lived. ¹ 1 v22 This is the first time in Scripture that anyone is raised from the dead — revealing our Father as the giver and restorer of life, and pointing ahead to the resurrection that comes in full through Jesus. ²³ Elijah picked up the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. "Look," Elijah said, "your son is alive."

²⁴ Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of our Father in your mouth is truth."