The Father Feeds Elijah by Ravens
17 1 Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, told Ahab, "As our Father, Israel's God, lives — before whom I stand — no dew or rain will fall these years except by 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 stayed by the Brook Cherith, east of the Jordan, as our Father said. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat morning and 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 near Sidon, stay there. I have ordered a widow there to feed you.
10 So he went to Zarephath. At the city gate, a widow gathered sticks. He called to her, "Please bring me a little water in a jar to drink." 11 As she went to get it, he called, "Please bring me a piece of bread too."
12 She said, "As the LORD your God lives, I have no bread — only a handful of flour in a jar and a bit of oil in a jug. I'm gathering two sticks to go in and prepare it for myself and my son, so we may eat it, then die."
13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go, do as you said. But first make me a small loaf from it, bring it to me; then make for you and your son."
14 For our Father, Israel's God, says: 'The flour jar won't run out, nor the oil jug fail, until the day our Father gives rain on the land.'
15 She went and did as Elijah said, and she, he, and her household ate for many days. 16 The flour jar didn't run out and the oil jug didn't run dry, as our Father said through Elijah.
17 Later the son of the woman, owner of the house, grew so ill no breath remained in him. 18 She asked Elijah, "What's between us, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my guilt and kill my son?"
19 "Give me your son," he said, took him from her arms, carried him upstairs to his room, and laid him on his bed. 20 He cried to our Father, "My Father, have you brought tragedy even on the widow I'm staying with, killing her son?" 21 He stretched himself on the child three times and cried 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. a a 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 took the child, carried him from the upper room into the house, gave him to his mother, said, "Look, your son is alive."
24 The woman told Elijah, "Now I know you're a man of God, and the word of God in your mouth is true."
