²⁵ I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.^(A)

¹⁷ Elijah was a human being, even as we are.^(A) He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.^{(B) 18} Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.^(C)