<p class="bodytext">King Rehoboam consulted with the older advisers who had served<n id="1" /> his father Solomon when he had been alive. He asked them,<n id="2" /> &#8220;How do you advise me to answer these people?&#8221;

<t /><p class="bodytext">Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, &#8220;As certainly as the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel lives (whom I serve),<n id="1" /> there will be no dew or rain in the years ahead unless I give the command.&#8221;<n id="2" />

For this is what the <sc>Lordsc> God of Israel says, &#8216;The jar of flour will not be empty and the jug of oil will not run out until the day the <sc>Lordsc> makes it rain on the surface of the ground.&#8217;&#8221;

<t /><p class="bodytext">Some time later, in the third year of the famine, the <sc>Lordsc> told Elijah,<n id="1" /> &#8220;Go, make an appearance before Ahab, so I may send rain on the surface of the ground.&#8221;

<p class="bodytext">Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen; he was near the twelfth pair. Elijah passed by him and threw his robe over him.

<p class="bodytext">So Ahab went into his palace, bitter and angry that Naboth the Jezreelite had said,<n id="1" /> &#8220;I will not sell to you my ancestral inheritance.&#8221;<n id="2" /> He lay down on his bed, pouted,<n id="3" /> and would not eat.

<p class="bodytext">Now the king of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah were sitting on their respective thrones,<n id="1" /> dressed in their robes, at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria.<n id="2" /> All the prophets were prophesying before them.

<p class="bodytext">The king then told Abiathar the priest, &#8220;Go back to your property<n id="1" /> in Anathoth. You deserve to die,<n id="2" /> but today I will not kill you because you did carry the ark of the sovereign <sc>Lordsc> before my father David and you suffered with my father through all his difficult times.&#8221;<n id="3" />

Solomon replied, &#8220;You demonstrated<n id="1" /> great loyalty to your servant, my father David, as he served<n id="2" /> you faithfully, properly, and sincerely.<n id="3" /> You have maintained this great loyalty to this day by allowing his son to sit on his throne.<n id="4" />