But in truth I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was closed up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land;

so he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and have found none. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground [depleting the soil and blocking the sunlight]?’

Therefore be continually alert, remembering that for three years, night or day, I did not stop admonishing and advising each one [of you] with tears.

Then three years later I did go up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas (Peter), and I stayed with him fifteen days.

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours [with the same physical, mental, and spiritual limitations and shortcomings], and he prayed intensely for it not to rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.