information:filtering, structural:expansion
Challenge to Baal

When Ahab confronts Elijah, he denounces him as being the "troubler of Israel" but Elijah retorts that Ahab himself is the one who troubled Israel by allowing the worship of false gods (shedim).

At Elijah's instruction, Ahab summons the people of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah to Mount Carmel. Elijah then berates the people for their acquiescence in Baal worship: "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the L ORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him."

Elijah proposes a direct test of the powers of Baal and Yahweh (both Asherah and her prophets disappear from the story entirely): he and Baal's prophets will each take one of two bulls, prepare it for sacrifice and lay it on wood, but put no fire to it. The prophets of Baal choose and prepare a bull accordingly. Elijah then invites them to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They pray from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridicules their efforts. "At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, 'Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.'" They respond by shouting louder and slashing themselves with swords and spears. They continue praying until evening without success.

Elijah then repairs Yahweh's altar with twelve stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Elijah digs a trench around it and prepares the other bull for sacrifice as before. He then orders that the sacrifice and altar be drenched with water from "four large jars" poured three times, filling also the trench. He asks Yahweh to accept the sacrifice. Fire falls from the sky, consuming the sacrifice, the stones of the altar itself, the earth and the water in the trench as well. When the people see this, they declare, "The L ORD — he is God; the L ORD — he is God." Elijah then orders them to seize the prophets of Baal, which they do, and Elijah brings them down to the River Kishon and slays them, at which the rains begin, signaling the end of the famine.