1 Kings 13–22

13At the Lord’s command a prophet from Judah went to Bethel and arrived there as Jeroboam stood at the altar to offer the sacrifice. ^2*Following the Lord’s command, the prophet denounced the altar: “O altar, altar, this is what the Lord says: A child, whose name will be Josiah, will be born to the family of David. He will slaughter on you the priests serving at the pagan altars who offer sacrifices on you, and he will burn human bones on you.” ³And the prophet went on to say, “This altar will fall apart, and the ashes on it will be scattered. Then you will know that the Lord has spoken through me.”

⁴When King Jeroboam heard this, he pointed at him and ordered, “Seize that man!” At once the king’s arm became paralysed so that he couldn’t pull it back. ⁵The altar suddenly fell apart and the ashes spilt to the ground, as the prophet had predicted in the name of the Lord. ⁶King Jeroboam said to the prophet, “Please pray for me to the Lord your God, and ask him to heal my arm!”

The prophet prayed to the Lord, and the king’s arm was healed. ⁷Then the king said to the prophet, “Come home with me and have something to eat. I will reward you for what you have done.”

⁸The prophet answered, “Even if you gave me half your wealth, I would not go with you or eat or drink anything with you. ⁹The Lord has commanded me not to eat or drink a thing, and not to return home the same way I came.” ¹⁰So he did not go back the same way he had come, but by another road.

The Old Prophet of Bethel

¹¹At that time there was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons^q came and told him what the prophet from Judah had done in Bethel that day and what he had said to King Jeroboam. ¹²“Which way did he go when he left?” the old prophet asked them. They showed him^r the road ¹³and he told them to saddle his donkey for him. They did so, and he rode off ¹⁴down the road after the prophet from Judah and found him sitting under an oak. “Are you the prophet from Judah?” he asked.

“I am,” the man answered.

¹⁵“Come home and have a meal with me,” he said.

¹⁶But the prophet from Judah answered, “I can’t go home with you or accept your hospitality. And I won’t eat or drink anything with you here, ¹⁷because the Lord has commanded me not to eat or drink a thing, and not to return home the same way I came.”

¹⁸Then the old prophet from Bethel said to him, “I, too, am a prophet just like you, and at the Lord’s command an angel told me to take you home with me and offer you my hospitality.” But the old prophet was lying.

¹⁹So the prophet from Judah went home with the old prophet and had a meal with him. ²⁰As they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet, ²¹and he cried out to the prophet from Judah, “The Lord says that you disobeyed him and did not do what he commanded. ²²Instead, you returned and ate a meal in a place he had ordered you not to eat in. Because of this you will be killed, and your body will not be buried in your family grave.”

²³After they had finished eating, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet from Judah, ²⁴who rode off. On the way, a lion met him and killed him. His body lay on the road, and the donkey and the lion stood beside it. ²⁵Some men passed by and saw the body on the road, with the lion standing near by. They went on into Bethel and reported what they had seen.

²⁶When the old prophet heard about it, he said, “That is the prophet who disobeyed the Lord’s command! And so the Lord sent the lion to attack and kill him, just as the Lord said he would.” ²⁷Then he said to his sons, “Saddle my donkey for me.” They did so, ²⁸and he rode off and found the prophet’s body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion still standing by it. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. ²⁹The old prophet picked up the body, put it on the donkey, and brought it back to Bethel to mourn over it and bury it. ³⁰He buried it in his own family grave, and he and his sons mourned over it, saying, “Oh my brother, my brother!” ³¹After the burial, the prophet said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in this grave and lay my body next to his. ³²The words that he spoke at the Lord’s command against the altar in Bethel and against all the places of worship in the towns of Samaria will surely come true.”

Jeroboam’s Fatal Sin

³³King Jeroboam of Israel still did not turn from his evil ways, but continued to choose priests from ordinary families to serve at the altars he had built. He ordained as priest anyone who wanted to be one. ³⁴This sin on his part brought about the ruin and total destruction of his dynasty.

The Death of Jeroboam’s Son

14At that time King Jeroboam’s son Abijah fell ill. ²Jeroboam said to his wife, “Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you, and go to Shiloh, where the prophet Ahijah lives, the one who said I would be king of Israel. ³Take him ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey. Ask him what is going to happen to our son, and he will tell you.”

⁴So she went to Ahijah’s home in Shiloh. Old age had made Ahijah blind. ⁵The Lord had told him that Jeroboam’s wife was coming to ask him about her son, who was ill. And the Lord told Ahijah what to say.

When Jeroboam’s wife arrived, she pretended to be someone else. ⁶But when Ahijah heard her coming in the door, he said, “Come in. I know you are Jeroboam’s wife. Why are you pretending to be someone else? I have bad news for you. ⁷Go and tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to him: ‘I chose you from among the people and made you the ruler of my people Israel. ⁸I took the kingdom away from David’s descendants and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who was completely loyal to me, obeyed my commands, and did only what I approve of. ⁹You have committed far greater sins than those who ruled before you. You have rejected me and have aroused my anger by making idols and metal images to worship. ^10*Because of this I will bring disaster on your dynasty and will kill all your male descendants, young and old alike. I will get rid of your family; they will be swept away like dung. ¹¹Any members of your family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and any who die in the open country will be eaten by vultures. I, the Lord, have spoken.’ ”

¹²And Ahijah went on to say to Jeroboam’s wife, “Now go back home. As soon as you enter the town your son will die. ¹³All the people of Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He will be the only member of Jeroboam’s family who will be properly buried, because he is the only one with whom the Lord, the God of Israel, is pleased. ¹⁴The Lord is going to place a king over Israel who will put an end to Jeroboam’s dynasty.^{s 15}The Lord will punish Israel, and she will shake like a reed shaking in a stream. He will uproot the people of Israel from this good land which he gave to their ancestors, and he will scatter them beyond the River Euphrates, because they have aroused his anger by making idols of the goddess Asherah. ¹⁶The Lord will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and led the people of Israel into sin.”

¹⁷Jeroboam’s wife went back to Tirzah. Just as she entered her home, the child died. ¹⁸The people of Israel mourned for him and buried him, as the Lord had said through his servant, the prophet Ahijah.

The Death of Jeroboam

¹⁹Everything else that King Jeroboam did, the wars he fought and how he ruled, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel. ²⁰Jeroboam ruled as king for 22 years. He died and was buried, and his son Nadab succeeded him as king.

King Rehoboam of Judah

²¹Solomon’s son Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen from all the territory of Israel as the place where he was to be worshipped. Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah from Ammon.

²²The people of Judah sinned against the Lord and did more to arouse his anger against them than all their ancestors had done. ^23*They built places of worship for false gods, and put up stone pillars and symbols of Asherah to worship on the hills and under shady trees. ^24*Worst of all, there were men and women who served as prostitutes at those pagan places of worship. The people of Judah practiced all the shameful things done by the people whom the Lord had driven out of the land as the Israelites advanced into the country.

^25*In the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. ^26*He took away all the treasures in the Temple and in the palace, including the gold shields Solomon had made. ²⁷To replace them, King Rehoboam made bronze shields and entrusted them to the officers responsible for guarding the palace gates. ²⁸Every time the king went to the Temple, the guards carried the shields, and then returned them to the guard-room.

²⁹Everything else that King Rehoboam did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. ³⁰During all this time Rehoboam and Jeroboam were constantly at war with each other. ³¹Rehoboam died and was buried in the royal tombs in David’s City, and his son Abijah succeeded him as king.

King Abijah of Judah

15In the eighteenth year of the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel, Abijah became king of Judah, ²and he ruled for three years in Jerusalem. His mother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. ³He committed the same sins as his father and was not completely loyal to the Lord his God, as his great-grandfather David had been. ^4*But for David’s sake, the Lord his God gave Abijah a son to rule after him in Jerusalem and to keep Jerusalem secure. ^5*The Lord did this because David had done what pleased him and had never disobeyed any of his commands, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. ^6*The war which had begun between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continued throughout Abijah’s lifetime. ⁷And everything else that Abijah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.

⁸Abijah died and was buried in David’s City, and his son Asa succeeded…