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Elijah Flees From Jezebel

19 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”

When he saw that she was serious, he arose and ran for his life to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough! Now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.”

As he lay and slept under the juniper tree, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” He looked, and there was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water at his head. And he ate and drank and then lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” He arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Elijah Hears the Lord

He came to a cave and camped there, and the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

10 And he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, Lord of Hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.”

11 He said, “Go and stand on the mountain before the Lord.”

And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind split the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake came, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake, a fire came, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a still, small voice. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood in the entrance to the cave.

And a voice came to him and said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”

14 And he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, Lord of Hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.”

15 The Lord said to him, “Go, return on the road through the Wilderness of Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king over Aram. 16 And you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah, to be prophet in your place. 17 He who escapes the sword of Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and he who escapes the sword of Jehu will be killed by Elisha. 18 Still, I have preserved seven thousand men in Israel for Myself, all of whose knees have not bowed to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”

The Call of Elisha

19 So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him and he with the twelfth, and Elijah passed by him and threw his cloak on him. 20 He left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Please let me kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you.”

And he said to him, “Go back, for what have I done to you?”

21 So he returned from following him and took a yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes from the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he got up and went after Elijah and ministered to him.