1st Kings 18:19-43

¹⁹Nevertheless now send thou, and gather to me all Israel, into the hill of Carmel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of maumet woods, that eat of the table of Jezebel.

²⁰Ahab sent to all the sons of Israel, and gathered together the prophets in the hill of Carmel.

²¹Forsooth Elijah nighed to all the people of Israel, and said, How long halt ye into two parts? If the Lord is God, pursue ye or followeth him; and if Baal is God, pursue ye or followeth him. And the people answered not one word to him.

²²And Elijah said again to the people, I dwelled alone a prophet of the Lord; soothly the prophets of Baal be four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the maumet woods be four hundred men.

²³Twain oxes or two oxen be given to us; and choose they one ox, and they shall cut it into gobbets, and put it on wood, but put they not fire under; and I shall make ready the tother ox into sacrifice, and I shall put it on the wood, and I shall not put fire under it either.

²⁴Call ye the name of your gods, and I shall call the name of my God; and the God that heareth by fire falling down, given from heaven to waste the sacrifice, be he God. And all the people answered, and said, The reason is best, that Elijah hath spoken.

²⁵Therefore Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose ye one ox to you, and make ye ready first your sacrifice, for ye be the more; and call ye the names of your gods, and put ye not fire under.

²⁶And when they had taken the ox, whom or that Elijah gave to them, they made ready the sacrifice, and called the name of Baal, from the morrowtide till to midday, and said, Baal, hear us! And no voice was, neither any that answered; and they skipped over the altar, which they had made.

²⁷And when it was then midday, Elijah scorned them, and said, Cry ye with a greater voice, for Baal is your god, and in hap he speaketh with another, either he is in a harbourgerie, either in the way, either certainly he sleepeth, that he be raised up.

²⁸Therefore they cried with a greater voice, and they cut themselves with knives and lancets, after their custom, till they were beshed with blood.

²⁹But after that midday passed, and while they prophesied, or prayed, the time came, in which the sacrifice is wont to be offered, neither voice was heard of their gods, neither any answered, neither perceived them praying.

³⁰And Elijah said to all the people, Come ye to me. And when the people came to him, he arrayed the altar of the Lord, that was destroyed.

³¹And he took twelve stones, by the number of the lineages of the sons of Jacob, to which Jacob the word of the Lord was made, and said, Israel shall be thy name.

³²And he builded an altar of stones, in the name of the Lord, and he made a leading-to of water, either a ditch, as by two little ditches, or furrows, in the compass of the altar.

³³And he dressed the wood, and he parted the ox by its members, and put it upon the wood, and said, Fill ye four pots with water, and pour ye it upon the burnt sacrifice, and upon the wood.

³⁴And again he said, Also the second time do ye this. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do ye the same thing the third time; and they did it the third time.

³⁵And the waters ran about the altar, and the ditch, or rut, of the leading-to of water was filled.

³⁶And when the time was then, that the burnt sacrifice should be offered, Elijah the prophet nighed, and said, Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, show thou today that thou art God of Israel, and that I am thy servant, and have done all these words by thy commandment.

³⁷Lord, hear thou me; Lord, hear thou me; that this people learn, that thou art the Lord God, and that thou hast converted again the heart of them.

³⁸Soothly the fire of the Lord felled down then, and devoured the burnt sacrifice, the wood, and the stones, and it licked up also the powder, and the water that was in the leading-to, or the rut, of water.

³⁹And when all the people had seen this, the people felled into his face, and said, The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.

⁴⁰And Elijah said to them, Take ye the prophets of Baal; not one soothly escape of them. And when they had taken them, Elijah led them to the strand or stream of Kishon, and killed them there.

⁴¹And Elijah said to Ahab, Go thou up, and eat, and drink, for the sound of much rain is nigh.

⁴²Ahab went up to eat and drink; but Elijah went up into the top of the hill of Carmel, and he set lowly his face to the earth, betwixt his knees;

⁴³and said to his servant, Go thou up, and behold thou against the sea. And when he had gone up, and beheld, he said, Nothing is there. And again Elijah said to him, Turn thou again, seven times.