00:00See then, Lord.
00:02I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.
00:08Elijah looked at the dry riverbed, the stones, the raven.
00:13Then he stood up, tightened his belt, and walked north.
00:24The drought did not arrive like a storm.
00:27It came the way old age does, without anyone noticing the day it began.
00:33First, the early morning dew vanished, and the farmers said it was the wind.
00:39Then the autumn rain failed to fall, and they said it was merely delayed.
00:45Then the spring rain failed, and no one said anything at all.
00:51The terraces of Samaria turned into steps of dust.
00:54The olive trees turned gray, and then became nothing but firewood.
00:59The rivers stopped flowing and turned into open wounds in the earth, with white stones at the bottom like bones.
01:07From the wells, the bucket came up filled with dust.
01:11In the fields, the ox pulling the plow would buckle at the knees and fail to rise,
01:17and the farmer would drop his goad and stand there empty-handed, for there was nothing left for his hands
01:23to do.
01:25And in the houses, mothers scraped the bottoms of their vessels with two fingers,
01:30and gave their children whatever they found.
01:33Above it all, the sky remained white, white and smooth, and sealed shut like a tombstone.
01:42The priests of Baal danced around the black altar from dawn, shouting and stomping their feet on the stone.
01:48Baal! Send us rain!
01:53Beneath a cedar canopy, in the shade, Jezebel watched.
01:57A golden cup in her hand, not a muscle in her face moved.
02:01Only her eyes rose slowly from the priests to the sky above them.
02:06The sky was cloudless.
02:08The smoke from the altar rose straight and thin, vanishing into the white.
02:13The chanting faltered.
02:15The dancing ceased.
02:17The priest stood there, chests heaving, arms still raised, gazing upward.
02:26Jezebel walked away without saying a word.
02:29The high priest ran after her.
02:32My queen, Baal is silent because there is an enemy of his in the land.
02:37The man who cursed the rain.
02:39As long as he lives...
02:42Then he must not live.
02:55In every kingdom.
02:56In every kingdom.
