1Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "May the gods do the same to me, and worse, if by this time tomorrow I have not made your life like the life of one of them."
3When Elijah saw that, he got up and ran for his life. He came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
4He himself went on a day's journey into the wilderness. He came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he asked that he might die. He said, "It is enough. Now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."
5As he lay sleeping under the juniper tree, an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat."
6He looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again.
7The angel of the LORD came a second time and touched him. He said, "Get up and eat, because the journey is too great for you."
8So he got up, and ate and drank. In the strength of that food he travelled forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.
9There he came to a cave, and he stayed the night in it. The word of the LORD came to him, and said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
10He said, "I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts. The children of Israel have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are looking for me, to take my life away."
11He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD." Then the LORD passed by. A great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
12After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still, small voice.
13When 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?"
14He said, "I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts, because the children of Israel have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are looking for me, to take my life away."
15The LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you come there, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria."
16"And anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel. And anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah to be 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 have kept for myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."
19So Elijah left there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat. He was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak on him.
20He left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, "Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." Elijah said to him, "Go back again. For what have I done to you?"
21So he went back from him, and took a yoke of oxen and killed them. He boiled their meat over the wooden gear of the oxen, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he got up and went after Elijah, and served him.