Jeremiah said: “I hear the whisperings of many:/ ‘Terror on every side!/ Denounce!

After the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to King Joash, and the king then listened to them.

When Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, saw that her son was dead, she began to kill off the whole royal family.

Like a fire there appeared the prophet Elijah/ whose words were as a flaming furnace./ Their staff of bread he shattered,/ in his zeal he reduced them to straits;/ By the Lord’s word he shut up the heavens/ and three times brought down fire./ How awesome are you, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!/ Whose glory is equal to yours?/ You brought a dead man back to life/ from the nether world, by the will of the Lord./ You sent kings down to destruction,/ and easily broke their power into ­pieces./ You brought down nobles, from their beds of sickness./ You heard threats at Sinai,/ at Horeb avenging judgments./ You anointed kings who should inflict vengeance,/ and a prophet as your successor./ You were taken aloft in a whirlwind of fire,/ in a chariot with fiery horses./ You were destined, it is written, in time to come/ to put an end to wrath before the day of the Lord,/ To turn back the hearts of fathers toward their sons,/ and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob./ Blessed is he who shall have seen you/ And who falls asleep in your friendship./ For we live only in our life,/ but after death our name will not be such./ O Elijah, enveloped in the whirlwind!

When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, he and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.

After the death of Naboth the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite: “Start down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He will be in the vineyard of Naboth, of which he has come to take possession. This is what you shall tell him, ‘The Lord says: After murdering, do you also take possession? For this, the Lord says: In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, the dogs shall lick up your blood, too.’” Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me out, my enemy?” “Yes,” he answered. “Because you have given yourself up to doing evil in the Lord’s sight, I am bringing evil upon you: I will destroy you and will cut off every male in Ahab’s line, whether slave or freeman, in Israel. I will make your house like that of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, and like that of Baasha, son of Ahijah, because of how you have provoked me by leading Israel into sin.” (Against Jezebel, too, the Lord declared, “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.”) “When one of Ahab’s line dies in the city, dogs will devour him; when one of them dies in the field, the birds of the sky will devour him.” Indeed, no one gave himself up to the doing of evil in the sight of the Lord as did Ahab, urged on by his wife Jezebel.

Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria.

Brothers and sisters: Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.

In those days, the Israelites came to the desert of Sinai and pitched camp.

Elijah set out, and came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he was following the twelfth.