Now Elijah the Tishbite, one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab: “As Adonai God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be no dew or rain these years, except at my word.”
“When the skies are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, yet if they pray toward this place and confess Your Name and turn from their sin because You have afflicted them,
Then He will give you rain for your seed, which you will sow in the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in wide-open pasture.
For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land will now be surely too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.
Instead of the thorn bush, a cypress will come up, and instead of the brier, a myrtle will come up, and it will be a memorial to Adonai, as an everlasting sign that will never be cut off.”
Then they will come, all of them— and will settle in the steep wadis and in the clefts of the cliffs and in all the thorn bushes and in all the watering holes.
Can any of the idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the skies grant showers? Is it not You, Adonai our God? Do we not wait for You? For You have done all these things.
Like the garden He laid waste His dwelling, destroyed His appointed meeting place. Adonai has caused moed and Shabbat to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of His anger He spurned king and kohen.
Look, even if they escape the desolation, Egypt will gather them up; Memphis will bury them. And their precious silver treasures? Weeds will possess them. Thorns will be in their tents.
“Also I myself have withheld from you the rain—when three months remain to the harvest, I caused it to rain on one city, while on another city I sent no rain; one piece of ground would get rain, while the portion not rained on would wither.
They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
These two have the power to shut the heavens, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying. And they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.