hets to this god. The king also himself
had many such about him, and so exceeded in madness and wickedness all
[the kings] that went before him.

2. There was now a prophet of God Almighty, of Thesbon, a country in
Gilead, that came to Ahab, and said to him, that God foretold he would
not send rain nor dew in those years upon the country but when he should
appear. And when he had confirmed this by an oath, he departed into the
southern parts, and made his abode by a brook, out of which he had water
to drink; for as for his food, ravens brought it to him every day: but
when that river was dried up for want of rain, he came to Zarephath, a
city not far from Sidon and Tyre, for it lay between them, and this at
the command of God, for [God told him] that he should there find a woman
who was a widow that should give him sustenance. So when he was not far
off the city, he saw a woman that labored with her own hands, gathering
of sticks: so God informed him that this was the woman who was to give
him sustenance. So he came and saluted her, and desired her to bring him
some water to drink; but as she was going so to do, he called to her,
and would have her to bring him a loaf of bread also; whereupon she
affirmed upon oath that she had at home nothing more than one handful
of meal, and a little oil, and that she was going to gather some sticks,
that she might knead it, and make bread for herself and her son; after
which, she said, they must perish, and be consumed by the famine, for
they had nothing for themselves any longer. Hereupon he said, "Go on
with good courage, and hope for better things; and first of all make
me a little cake, and bring it to me, for I foretell to thee that this
vessel of meal and this cruse of oil shall not fail until God send
rain." When the prophet had said this, she came to him, and made him the
before-named cake; of which she had part for herself, and gave the rest
to her son, and to the prophet also; nor did any thing of this fall
until the drought ceased. Now Menander mentions this drought in his
account of the acts of Ethbaal, king of the Tyrians; where he says thus:
"Under him there was a want of rain from the month Hyperberetmus
till the month Hyperberetmus of the year following; but when he made
supplications, there came great thunders. This Ethbaal built the city
Botrys in Phoenicia, and the city Auza in Libya." By these words he
designed the want of rain that was in the days of Ahab, for at