1 Kings 12–13

Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam

12:1–24pp—2Ch 10:1–11:4

12Rehoboam went to Shechem,^o for all Israel had gone there to make him king. ²When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled^p from King Solomon), he returned from^a Egypt. ³So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: ⁴“Your father put a heavy yoke^q on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then come back to me.” So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders^r who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.

⁷They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer,^s they will always be your servants.”

⁸But Rehoboam rejected^t the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. ⁹He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him replied, “These people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. ¹¹My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’ ”

¹²Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” ¹³The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, ¹⁴he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged^u you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.” ¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord,^v to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah^w the Shilonite.

¹⁶When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:

“What share^x do we have in David,

what part in Jesse’s son?

To your tents, Israel!^y

Look after your own house, David!”

So the Israelites went home.^{z 17}But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah,^a Rehoboam still ruled over them.

¹⁸King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram,^bb who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death.^c King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. ¹⁹So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David^d to this day.

²⁰When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.^e

²¹When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered all Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—a hundred and eighty thousand able young men—to go to war^f against Israel and to regain the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.

²²But this word of God came to Shemaiah^g the man of God:^{h 23}“Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, to all Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ²⁴‘This is what the Lord says: Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.’ ” So they obeyed the word of the Lord and went home again, as the Lord had ordered.

Golden Calves at Bethel and Dan

²⁵Then Jeroboam fortified Shechemⁱ in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel.^cj

²⁶Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. ²⁷If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem,^k they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

²⁸After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves.^l He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”^{m 29}One he set up in Bethel,ⁿ and the other in Dan.^{o 30}And this thing became a sin;^p the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.^d

³¹Jeroboam built shrines^q on high places and appointed priests^r from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. ³²He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth^s month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel,^t sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. ³³On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel.^u So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

The Man of God From Judah

13By the word of the Lord a man of God^v came from Judah to Bethel,^w as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. ²By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah^x will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places^y who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’ ” ³That same day the man of God gave a sign:^z “This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”

⁴When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. ⁵Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the Lord.

⁶Then the king said to the man of God, “Intercede^a with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.” So the man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before.

⁷The king said to the man of God, “Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift.”^b

⁸But the man of God answered the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions,^c I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread^d or drink water here. ⁹For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.’ ” ¹⁰So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. ¹²Their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. ¹³So he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it ¹⁴and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”

“I am,” he replied.

¹⁵So the prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat.”

¹⁶The man of God said, “I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread^e or drink water with you in this place. ¹⁷I have been told by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.’ ”

¹⁸The old prophet answered, “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord:^f ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” (But he was lying^g to him.) ¹⁹So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.

²⁰While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. ²¹He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have defied^h the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. ²²You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors.’ ”

²³When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. ²⁴As he went on his way, a lionⁱ met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. ²⁵Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied^j the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”

²⁷The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they did so. ²⁸Then he went out and found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. ²⁹So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. ³⁰Then he laid the body in his own tomb,^k and they mourned over him and said, “Alas, my brother!”^l

³¹After burying him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones^m beside his bones. ³²For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high placesⁿ in the towns of Samaria^o will certainly come true.”^p

³³Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways,^q but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts^r of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for…