idden a hundred prophets, and had fed them with nothing but bread and
water. But when Obadiah was alone, and absent from the king, the prophet
Elijah met him; and Obadiah asked him who he was; and when he had
learned it from him, he worshipped him. Elijah then bid him go to the
king, and tell him that I am here ready to wait on him. But Obadiah
replied, "What evil have I done to thee, that thou sendest me to one who
seeketh to kill thee, and hath sought over all the earth for thee?
Or was he so ignorant as not to know that the king had left no place
untouched unto which he had not sent persons to bring him back, in
order, if they could take him, to have him put to death?" For he told
him he was afraid lest God should appear to him again, and he should
go away into another place; and that when the king should send him for
Elijah, and he should miss of him, and not be able to find him any where
upon earth, he should be put to death. He desired him therefore to take
care of his preservation; and told him how diligently he had provided
for those of his own profession, and had saved a hundred prophets, when
Jezebel slew the rest of them, and had kept them concealed, and that
they had been sustained by him. But Elijah bade him fear nothing, but go
to the king; and he assured him upon oath that he would certainly show
himself to Ahab that very day.

5. So when Obadiah had informed the king that Elijah was there, Ahab
met him, and asked him, in anger, if he were the man that afflicted
the people of the Hebrews, and was the occasion of the drought they lay
under? But Elijah, without any flattery, said that he was himself the
man, he and his house, which brought such sad afflictions upon them,
and that by introducing strange gods into their country, and worshipping
them, and by leaving their own, who was the only true God, and having
no manner of regard to him. However, he bade him go his way, and gather
together all the people to him to Mount Carmel, with his own prophets,
and those of his wife, telling him how many there were of them, as also
the prophets of the groves, about four hundred in number. And as all the
men whom Ahab sent for ran away to the forenamed mountain, the prophet
Elijah stood in the midst of them, and said, "How long will you live
thus in uncertainty of mind and opinion?" He also exhorted them, that
in case they esteemed their own country God to be the true and the
only God, they would follow him and his com