Elijah Confronts Ahab and Prepares for Confrontation
18
Chapter 18
1It was many days, and the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, "Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will give rain on the face of the ground."2Elijah went to show himself to Ahab, and the famine had grown strong in Samaria.3He called Ahab to Obadiah, who was over the house, and Obadiah feared the LORD greatly.4When Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, he took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and sustained them with bread and water.5Ahab said to Obadiah, "Go into the land to all the springs of water and to all the streams; perhaps we will find grass to keep the horse and mule alive, and we will not cut off any from the livestock."6So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went one way by himself.7Obadiah was on the way, and behold, Elijah met him. And he bowed to him, fell on his face, and said, “Are you this, my lord Elijah?”8He said to him, "Go, tell your lord, 'Here is Elijah.'"9And he said, "What have I sinned, that you are giving your servant into the hand of Ahab to put me to death?"10As the LORD your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent to seek you; and when they said, "He is not here," he made that kingdom or nation swear that they had not found you.11And now you say to my lord, "Here is Elijah."12And it will be, as soon as I go from you, that the Spirit of the LORD will carry you to where I do not know; so when I come and tell Ahab, he will not find you, and you will kill me—though your servant has feared the LORD from my youth.13Hasn't my lord told what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the LORD, how I hid a hundred prophets of the LORD by fifties in a cave, and sustained them with bread and water?14And now you say to me, "Say to your lord, 'Behold, Elijah,' and he will kill me."15Elijah said, "As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I have stood, today I will show myself to him."