and took off after the prophet, whom he found sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the prophet from Judah?” He answered, “Yes, I am.”

Then he called out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, are you also bringing disaster on this widow I am staying with by killing her son?”

Elijah said to them: “I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left, but there are 450 prophets of Baal.

The king said to him, “How many times must I make you solemnly promise in the name of the Lord to tell me only the truth?”

I will become his father and he will become my son. I will never withhold my loyal love from him, as I withheld it from the one who ruled before you.

David went in, sat before the Lord, and said: “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, that you should have brought me to this point?

“Go, tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: “I am offering you three forms of judgment from which to choose. Pick one of them.”’”

David said to Solomon: “My son, I really wanted to build a temple to honor the Lord my God.

“But who am I and who are my people, that we should be in a position to contribute this much? Indeed, everything comes from you, and we have simply given back to you what is yours.

The king said to him, “How many times must I make you solemnly promise in the name of the Lord to tell me only the truth?”

Are you not aware of what I and my predecessors have done to all the nations of the surrounding lands? Have the gods of the surrounding lands actually been able to rescue their lands from my power?

Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations.

We did not change clothes – not I, nor my relatives, nor my workers, nor the watchmen who were with me. Each had his weapon, even when getting a drink of water.

Even I and my relatives and my associates are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral!

So I sent messengers to them saying, “I am engaged in an important work, and I am unable to come down. Why should the work come to a halt when I leave it to come down to you?”

Yet all of this fails to satisfy me so long as I have to see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

For we have been sold – both I and my people – to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation! If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”

and the Sabeans swooped down and carried them all away, and they killed the servants with the sword! And I – only I alone – escaped to tell you!”

So Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite spoke up: “I am young, but you are elderly; that is why I was fearful, and afraid to explain to you what I know.

Even when an army is deployed against me, I do not fear. Even when war is imminent, I remain confident.