Elijah Meets Ahab

1 Kings 18:1-20

Bible Stories

1 Kings 18:1 After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go and show yourself to Ahab, so that I may grant rain upon the face of the earth.”

1 Kings 18:2 Therefore, Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. For there was a severe famine in Samaria.

1 Kings 18:3 And Ahab called Obadiah, the manager of his household. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.

1 Kings 18:4 For when Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord, he took one hundred prophets, and concealed them, fifty and fifty, in caves. And he fed them with bread and water.

1 Kings 18:5 Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go into the land, to all fountains of water, and to all the valleys, for perhaps we will be able to find plants, and save the horses and mules, so that the beasts of burden may not perish entirely.”

1 Kings 18:6 And they divided the regions among themselves, so that they might travel through them. Ahab went one way alone, and Obadiah went another way by himself.

1 Kings 18:7 And while Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him. And when he had recognized him, he fell on his face, and he said, “Are you not my lord Elijah?”

1 Kings 18:8 And he responded to him: “I am. Go and tell your lord that Elijah is here.”

1 Kings 18:9 And he said: “How have I sinned that you would deliver me, your servant, into the hand of Ahab, so that he would put me to death?

1 Kings 18:10 As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent, seeking you. And when all responded, ‘He is not here,’ he swore each kingdom and nation to an oath, because you were not found at all.

1 Kings 18:11 And now, you say to me, ‘Go and tell your lord that Elijah is here.’

1 Kings 18:12 And when I will have departed from you, the Spirit of the Lord will transport you to a place that I do not know. And entering, I will report to Ahab. And he, not finding you, will put me to death. Yet your servant has feared the Lord from his infancy.

1 Kings 18:13 Has it not been revealed to you, my lord, what I did when Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord: how I hid one hundred men from the prophets of the Lord, fifty and fifty, in caves, and how I fed them with bread and water?

1 Kings 18:14 And now you say: ‘Go and tell your lord that Elijah is here,’ so that he may kill me!”

1 Kings 18:15 And Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whose face I stand, this day I will appear to him.”

1 Kings 18:16 Therefore, Obadiah went away to meet Ahab, and he reported to him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah.

1 Kings 18:17 And when he had seen him, he said, “Are you the one who is disturbing Israel?”

1 Kings 18:18 And he said: “I have not troubled Israel. But it is you, and the house of your father, who have abandoned the commandments of the Lord, and have followed the Baals.

1 Kings 18:19 Yet truly now, send and gather to me all of Israel, on Mount Carmel, with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of the sacred groves, who eat from the table of Jezebel.”

1 Kings 18:20 Ahab sent to all the sons of Israel, and he gathered together the prophets on mount Carmel.