1 Kings 17:17-23
New Catholic Bible
17 Elijah Restores Life to the Widow’s Son.[a] After these things happened, the son of the woman who owned the house fell ill. The illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.
18 She said to Elijah, “What do I have to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to make me remember my sins,[b] and to put my son to death?” 19 He said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her lap and carried him to the upper room, and he laid him upon his own bed. 20 He called out to the Lord, “O Lord, my God, have you brought disaster upon the widow with whom I am living by killing her son?” 21 He stretched himself out upon the boy three times, and he cried out to the Lord and said, “O Lord, my God, may this child’s life return to him.”
22 The Lord heard Elijah’s voice, and the child’s life returned to him and he revived. 23 Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and handed him over to his mother saying, “See, your son is alive.”
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1 Kings 17:17 The first raising from the dead of which the Bible speaks is on behalf of a foreign woman (see Lk 4:25-26).
- 1 Kings 17:18 Make me remember my sins: it was not uncommon at the time for a parent to blame themselves for a child’s disabilities. Elijah’s ability to raise the widow’s son from death was a sign to the people of God’s power among them.
