Elijah the Tishbite, who lived in Gilead, stood before King Ahab. He said that there would be neither dew nor rain for years except by the word of the God of Israel whom he served. After he spoke, God’s word came to Elijah. He was told to go east of the Jordan and hide by the brook Cherith.
Elijah went and stayed by the brook as he had been told. God commanded ravens to bring him food. They brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. But because no rain fell on the land, after a while the brook itself dried up.
When the brook dried up, God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, which belonged to Sidon. There, God said, a widow had been appointed to provide for him. When Elijah came to the city gate, he saw a widow gathering sticks. He asked her to bring him a little water in a vessel.
As she went to get it, Elijah called after her for a piece of bread as well. The widow swore by Elijah’s God that she had no baked bread. She had only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. She was gathering two sticks to prepare a last meal for herself and her son, after which they expected to die.
Elijah told her not to fear. She was to go and do as she had said, but first make him a small cake and bring it to him, then make food for herself and her son. He told her that the God of Israel had said that the jar of flour would not be emptied and the jug of oil would not fail until the day God sent rain upon the earth.
The widow went and did as Elijah said. Elijah, the widow, and her household ate for many days. In keeping with God’s word, the jar of flour did not run out and the jug of oil did not fail. The drought continued, but the food in the house did not come to an end after the widow gave Elijah the small cake.
Later the widow’s son became ill. His sickness grew so severe that he stopped breathing. The widow said to Elijah, man of God, what have you against me? She asked whether he had come to bring her sin to remembrance and cause her son’s death.
Elijah asked her to give him the child. He took the boy from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. Elijah cried out to God, asking whether disaster had come even upon the widow whose home had received him. He stretched himself over the child three times and asked that the child’s life return to him.
God heard Elijah’s voice. The child’s life returned, and he lived. Elijah brought the child down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. He told her to see that her son was alive.
The widow said that now she knew Elijah was a man of God and that the word of God in his mouth was true. Her final words joined the son she had received alive with the word Elijah had spoken.