1 Kings 19

¹ Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

² Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "May the gods do so to me and more, if by this time tomorrow I have not made your life like the life of one of them."

³ He was afraid. He got up and fled for his life. He came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

⁴ He himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came and sat under a broom bush and asked that he might die. He said, "Enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors."

⁵ He lay down and fell asleep under the broom bush. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up, eat."

⁶ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate, drank, and lay down again.

⁷ The angel of the LORD came back a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up, eat, for the journey is too great for you."

⁸ He got up, ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

⁹ He came to a cave there and spent the night. Then the word of the LORD came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

¹⁰ He said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts. The Israelites have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it."

¹¹ He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold—the LORD was passing by. A great and powerful wind was tearing the mountains and shattering the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.

¹² After the earthquake, a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire—a sound of thin silence.

¹³ When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

¹⁴ He said, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of Hosts. The Israelites have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it."

¹⁵ The LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Aram.

¹⁶ Anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

¹⁷ Whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.

¹⁸ Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."

¹⁹ He left there and found Elisha son of Shaphat plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his cloak over him.

²⁰ He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, then I will follow you." He said to him, "Go back, for what have I done to you?"

²¹ He turned back from following him, took the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them, and with the equipment of the oxen he boiled their flesh. He gave it to the people and they ate. Then he got up and followed Elijah and served him.