1 Kings 13–22

Chapter 13

And behold there came a man of God out of Juda, by the word of the Lord, to Bethel, when Jeroboam was standing upon the altar, and burning incense.

²And he cried out against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said: O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord: Behold a child shall be born to the house of David, Josias by name, and he shall immolate upon thee the priests of the high places, who now burn incense upon thee, and he shall burn men’s bones upon thee.

³And he gave a sign the same day, saying: This shall be the sign, that the Lord hath spoken: Behold the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it, shall be poured out.

⁴And when the king had heard the word of the man of God, which he had cried out against the altar in Bethel, he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying: Lay hold on him. And his hand which he stretched forth against him, withered: and he was not able to draw it back again to him.

⁵The altar also was rent, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given before in the word of the Lord.

⁶And the king said to the man of God: Entreat the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God besought the face of the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him, and it became as it was before.

⁷And the king said to the man of God: Come home with me to dine, and I will make thee presents.

⁸And the man of God answered the king: If thou wouldst give me half thy house, I will not go with thee, nor eat bread, nor drink water in this place:

⁹For so it was enjoined me by the word of the Lord commanding me: Thou shalt not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the same way that thou camest.

¹⁰So he departed by another way, and returned not by the way that he came into Bethel.

¹¹Now a certain old prophet dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came to him, and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: and they told their father the words which he had spoken to the king.

¹²And their father said to them: What way went he? His sons shewed him the way by which the man of God went, who came out of Juda.

¹³And he said to his sons: Saddle me the ass. And when they had saddled it, he got up,

¹⁴And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under a turpentine tree: and he said to him: Art thou the man of God who camest from Juda? He answered: I am.

¹⁵And he said to him: Come home with me to eat bread.

¹⁶But he said: I must not return, nor go with thee, neither will I eat bread, or drink water in this place:

¹⁷Because the Lord spoke to me, in the word of the Lord, saying: Thou shalt not eat bread, and thou shalt not drink water there, nor return by the way thou wentest.

¹⁸He said to him: I also am a prophet like unto thee: and an angel spoke to me, in the word of the Lord, saying: Bring him back with thee into thy house, that he may eat bread, and drink water. He deceived him,

¹⁹And brought him back with him: so he ate bread, and drank water in his house.

²⁰And as they sat at table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet that brought him back:

²¹And he cried out to the man of God who came out of Juda, saying: Thus saith the Lord: Because thou hast not been obedient to the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee,

²²And hast returned, and eaten bread, and drunk water in the place wherein he commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat bread, nor drink water, thy dead body shall not be brought into the sepulchre of thy fathers.

²³And when he had eaten and drunk, he saddled his ass for the prophet, whom he had brought back.

²⁴And when he was gone, a lion found him in the way, and killed him, and his body was cast in the way: and the ass stood by him, and the lion stood by the dead body.

²⁵And behold, men passing by, saw the dead body cast in the way, and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city, wherein that old prophet dwelt.

²⁶And when that prophet, who had brought him back out of the way, heard of it, he said: It is the man of God, that was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord hath delivered him to the lion, and he hath torn him, and killed him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke to him.

²⁷And he said to his sons: Saddle me an ass. And when they had saddled it,

²⁸And he was gone, he found the dead body cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass: the lion had not eaten of the dead body, nor hurt the ass.

²⁹And the prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and going back brought it into the city of the old prophet, to mourn for him.

³⁰And he laid his dead body in his own sepulchre: and they mourned over him, saying: Alas! alas, my brother.

³¹And when they had mourned over him, he said to his sons: When I am dead, bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried: lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For assuredly the word shall come to pass which he hath foretold in the word of the Lord, against the altar that is in Bethel: and against all the temples of the high places, that are in the cities of Samaria.

³³After these words, Jeroboam came not back from his wicked way: but on the contrary, he made of the meanest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he filled his hand, and he was made a priest of the high places.

³⁴And for this cause did the house of Jeroboam sin, and was cut off, and destroyed from the face of the earth.

Chapter 14

At that time Abia, the son of Jeroboam, fell sick.

²And Jeroboam said to his wife: Arise, and change thy dress, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Silo, where Ahias, the prophet is, who told me that I should reign over this people.

³Take also with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a pot of honey, and go to him: for he will tell thee what will become of this child.

⁴Jeroboam’s wife did as he told her: and rising up, went to Silo, and came to the house of Ahias; but he could not see, for his eyes were dim by reason of his age.

⁵And the Lord said to Ahias: Behold the wife of Jeroboam cometh in, to consult thee concerning her son, that is sick: thus and thus shalt thou speak to her. So when she was coming in, and made as if she were another woman,

⁶Ahias heard the sound of her feet, coming in at the door, and said: Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam: why dost thou feign thyself to be another? But I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.

⁷Go, and tell Jeroboam: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: For as much 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 to thee, and thou hast not been as my servant, David, who kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart, doing that which was well pleasing in my sight:

⁹But hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast made thee strange gods, and molten gods, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:

¹⁰Therefore, behold I will bring evils upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up, and the last in Israel: and I will sweep away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as dung is swept away till all be clean.

¹¹Them that shall die of Jeroboam in the city, the dogs shall eat: and them that shall die in the field, the birds of the air shall devour: for the Lord hath spoken it.

¹²Arise thou, therefore, and go to thy house: and when thy feet shall be entering into the city, the child shall die,

¹³And all Israel shall mourn for him, and shall bury him: for he only of Jeroboam shall be laid in a sepulchre, because in his regard there is found a good word from the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.

¹⁴And the Lord hath appointed himself a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam in this day, and in this time:

¹⁵And the Lord God shall strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water: and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river: because they have made to themselves groves, to provoke the Lord.

¹⁶And the Lord shall give up Israel for the sins of Jeroboam, who hath sinned, and made Israel to sin.

¹⁷And the wife of Jeroboam arose, and departed, and came to Thersa: and when she was coming in to the threshold of the house, the child died,

¹⁸And they buried him. And all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Ahias, the prophet.

¹⁹And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he fought, and how he reigned, behold they are written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel.

²⁰And the days that Jeroboam reigned, were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers: and Nadab, his son, reigned in his stead.

²¹And Roboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Juda: Roboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign: and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naama, an Ammonitess.

²²And Juda did evil in the sight of the Lord, and provoked him above all that their fathers had done, in their sins which they committed.

²³For they also built them altars, and statues, and groves, upon every high hill, and under every green tree:

²⁴There were also the effeminate in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the people, whom the Lord had destroyed before the face of the children of Israel.

²⁵And in the fifth year of the reign of Roboam, Sesac, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem.

²⁶And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the king’s treasures, and carried all off: as also the shields of gold which Solomon had made:

²⁷And Roboam made shields of brass…