1 Kings 13–22

Chapter 13

¹And behold, there came a man of God from Judah, by the word of Jehovah, to Bethel; and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. ²And he cried against the altar by the word of Jehovah, and said, O altar, altar! thus saith Jehovah: Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burned upon thee. ³And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign that Jehovah hath spoken: Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. ⁴And it came to pass when the king heard the word of the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, that Jeroboam stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand which he stretched out against him dried up, so that he could not bring it back again to him. ⁵And the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of Jehovah. ⁶And the king answered and said to the man of God, Intreat now Jehovah thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me again. And the man of God intreated Jehovah, and the king’s hand was restored to him again, and became as before. ⁷And the king said to the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a present. ⁸And the man of God said to the king, If thou wilt give me half thy house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place; ⁹for so was it charged me by the word of Jehovah, saying, Thou shalt eat no bread, nor drink water, nor return by the way that thou shalt go. ¹⁰So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now there dwelt a certain old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words that he had spoken to the king, them they told also to their father. ¹²And their father said to them, Which way went he? for his sons had seen which way the man of God went, who came from Judah. ¹³And he said to his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass; and he rode thereon, ¹⁴and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under a terebinth; and he said to him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. ¹⁵And he said to him, Come home with me, and eat bread. ¹⁶And he said, I cannot return with thee, nor go in with thee; neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place. ¹⁷For it was said to me by the word of Jehovah, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou wentest. ¹⁸And he said to him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spoke to me by the word of Jehovah saying, Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat bread and drink water. He lied unto him. ¹⁹Then he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water. ²⁰And it came to pass as they sat at the table, that the word of Jehovah came to the prophet that brought him back; ²¹and he cried to the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the word of Jehovah, and hast not kept the commandment that Jehovah thy God commanded thee, ²²but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to thee, Eat no bread and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come to the sepulchre of thy fathers.

²³And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled the ass for him, for the prophet that he had brought back; ²⁴and he departed. And a lion met him by the way and slew him; and his corpse was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it; the lion also stood by the corpse. ²⁵And behold, men passed by, and saw the corpse cast in the way and the lion standing by the corpse; and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. ²⁶And the prophet that brought him back from the way heard of it and said, It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of Jehovah; therefore Jehovah has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and slain him, according to the word of Jehovah which he spoke to him. ²⁷And he spoke to his sons saying, Saddle me the ass; and they saddled it. ²⁸And he went and found his corpse cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the corpse: the lion had not eaten the corpse, nor torn the ass. ²⁹And the prophet took up the corpse of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back; and the old prophet came into the city, to mourn and to bury him. ³⁰And he laid his corpse in his own sepulchre; and they mourned over him saying, Alas, my brother! ³¹And it came to pass after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons saying, When I am dead, bury me in the sepulchre in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. ³²For the word that he cried by the word of Jehovah against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria, shall certainly come to pass. ³³After this thing Jeroboam turned not from his evil way, but made again from all classes of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. ³⁴And by this thing there was sin on the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.

Chapter 14

¹At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam was sick. ²And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and go to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, who told me that I should be king over this people. ³And take with thee ten loaves, and cakes, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he will tell thee what shall become of the lad. ⁴And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. And Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age. ⁵And Jehovah said to Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee about her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her; for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign to be another. ⁶And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou to be another? But I am sent to thee with a hard message.

⁷Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith Jehovah the God of Israel: Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel, ⁸and rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee; and thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart, to do only that which is right in my sight; ⁹but thou hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: ¹⁰therefore behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every male, him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone. ¹¹Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth in the field shall the fowl of the heavens eat; for Jehovah hath spoken. ¹²And thou, arise, go to thine own house; when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. ¹³And all Israel shall mourn for him, and they shall bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward Jehovah the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. ¹⁴And Jehovah shall raise up for himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day; and what? …even now. ¹⁵And Jehovah will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their Asherahs, provoking Jehovah to anger. ¹⁶And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, wherewith he has sinned, and made Israel to sin. ¹⁷And Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed, and came to Tirzah; when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died. ¹⁸And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spoke through his servant Ahijah the prophet. ¹⁹And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. ²⁰And the days that Jeroboam reigned were twenty-two years; and he slept with his fathers. And Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

²¹And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that Jehovah had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there; and his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess. ²²And Judah did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed more than all that their fathers had done. ²³And they also built for themselves high places, and columns, and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree; ²⁴and there were also sodomites in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed before the children of Israel. ²⁵And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. ²⁶And he took away the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made. ²⁷And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields,…