1 Kings 13
13
Prophets condemn Jeroboam
A prophet condemns the altar at Bethel
1-2One day, Jeroboam was standing at the altar in Bethel, ready to make an offering. Suddenly one of God's prophets#13.1,2 one of God's prophets: Hebrew “a man of God”. arrived from Judah and shouted:#2 K 23.15,16.
The LORD sent me with a message about this altar. A child named Josiah will be born into David's family. He will sacrifice on this altar the priests who make offerings here, and human bones will be burnt on it.
3You will know that the LORD has said these things when the altar splits in half, and the ashes on it fall to the ground.
4Jeroboam pointed at the prophet and shouted, “Grab him!” But straight away, Jeroboam's hand became stiff, and he could not move it. 5The altar split in half, and the ashes fell to the ground, just as the prophet had warned.
6“Please pray to the LORD your God and ask him to heal my hand,” Jeroboam begged.
The prophet prayed, and Jeroboam's hand was healed.
7“Come home with me and eat something,” Jeroboam said. “I want to give you a gift for what you have done.”
8“No, I wouldn't go with you, even if you offered me half of your kingdom. I won't eat or drink here either. 9The LORD said I can't eat or drink anything and that I can't go home the same way I came.” 10Then he started home down a different road.
An old prophet from Bethel
11At that time an old prophet lived in Bethel, and one of his sons told him what the prophet from Judah had said and done.
12“Show me which way he went,” the old prophet said, and his sons pointed out the road. 13“Put a saddle on my donkey,” he told them. After they did, he got on the donkey 14and rode off to look for the prophet from Judah.
The old prophet found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the prophet from Judah?”
“Yes, I am.”
15“Come home with me,” the old prophet said, “and have something to eat.”
16“I can't go back with you,” the prophet replied, “and I can't eat or drink anything with you. 17The LORD warned me not to eat or drink or to go home the same way I came.”
18The old prophet said, “I'm a prophet too. One of the LORD's angels told me to take you to my house and give you something to eat and drink.”
The prophet from Judah did not know that the old prophet was lying, 19so he went home with him and ate and drank.
20During the meal the LORD gave the old prophet 21a message for the prophet from Judah:
Listen to the LORD's message. You have disobeyed the LORD your God. 22He told you not to eat or drink anything here, but you came home and ate with me. And so, when you die, your body won't be buried in your family tomb.
23After the meal the old prophet got a donkey ready, 24and the prophet from Judah left. Along the way, a lion attacked and killed him, and the donkey and the lion stood there beside his dead body.
25Some people walked by and saw the body with the lion standing there. They ran into Bethel, telling everyone what they had seen.
26When the old prophet heard the news, he said, “That must be the prophet from Judah. The LORD warned him, but he disobeyed. So the LORD sent a lion to kill him.”
27The old prophet told his sons to saddle his donkey, and when it was ready, 28he left. He found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and lion standing there. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. 29The old prophet picked up the body, put it on his own donkey, and took it back to Bethel, so he could bury it and mourn for the prophet from Judah.
30He buried the body in his own family tomb and cried for the prophet. 31He said to his sons, “When I die, bury my body next to this prophet. 32I'm sure that everything he said about the altar in Bethel and the shrines in Samaria will happen.”
33But Jeroboam kept on doing evil things. He appointed men to be priests at the local shrines, even if they were not Levites. In fact, anyone who wanted to be a priest could be one. 34This sinful thing led to the downfall of his kingdom.
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© British and Foreign Bible Society 2012
1 Kings 13
13
1The Lord ordered a man of God from Judah to go to Bethel. He arrived just as Jeroboam was standing beside the altar about to present a burnt offering. 2He shouted out the Lord's condemnation of the altar: “Altar, altar, this is what the Lord says. A son will be born to the house of David. His name will be Josiah, and on you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn offerings on you, and human bones will be burned on you.” 3The same day the man of God gave a sign, saying, “This is the sign to prove that the Lord has spoken. Look! The altar will be split apart, and the ashes on it will spill out.”
4When King Jeroboam heard the condemnation the man of God had shouted out against the altar in Bethel, he pointed his hand at him and said, “Arrest him!” But the hand the king had pointed at him had become paralyzed and he couldn't draw it back. 5The altar split apart, and the ashes spilled out from it, fulfilling the sign that the man of God had given from the Lord.
6Then the king said to the man of God, “Please plead with the Lord your God—pray for me that I may have my hand back!” The man of God pleaded with the Lord, and the king was given back the use of his hand as it was before.
7Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to my home and have a meal so I can give you a present.”
8But the man of God told the king, “Even if you gave me half of everything you own, I still wouldn't go with you. In fact I refuse to eat or drink anything in this place. 9The Lord ordered me not to eat or drink anything, and not to return by the way I came.” 10So he went a different way—he did not return the way he had come to Bethel.
11It so happened that an old prophet lived in Bethel. His sons#13:11. “Sons”: the Hebrew text has “son” here, but in view of the plural being used later it seems best to use it here too. came and told him everything the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told their father what the man had said to the king. 12“Which way did he go?” their father asked them. So his sons showed him the way taken by the man of God from Judah. 13“Saddle up a donkey for me,” he told his sons. They saddled up a donkey and he got on.
14He rode after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” he asked him. “Yes I am,” the man replied.
15“Come home with me and have something to eat,” he told him.
16“I can't turn around and go with you, and I won't eat or drink with you in this place,” the man of God replied. 17“The Lord ordered me, saying ‘You must not eat or drink anything there, or return by the way you came.’”
18But the old prophet told him, “I am also a prophet, just like you. An angel told me God said, ‘Take him home with you so that he can have something to eat and drink’” But he was lying to him.
19So the man of God went back with him, and ate and drank in his house. 20As they were sitting at the table, a message from the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back. 21He called out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not followed the orders that the Lord your God gave you, 22instead you went back and ate and drank in the place where he told you not to, your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers.”
23After the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his own donkey for him. 24But as he went on his way a lion came across him on the road and killed him. His body was left lying in the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. 25Some passers-by saw the body lying in the road with the lion standing beside it, so they went and let people know about it in the town where the old prophet lived.
26When the old prophet who had led the other astray heard what had happened, he said, “It's the man of God who disobeyed the Lord's orders. That's why the Lord put him in the path of the lion, and it has mauled him and killed him, just as the Lord told him would happen.”
27The prophet told his sons, “Saddle up a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey, 28and he went and found the body. It was still lying in the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. 29The prophet picked up the body of the man of God, placed it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own town to mourn over him and bury him. 30He laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him, crying, “My poor brother!”
31After he'd buried him, he told his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones. 32For the message from the Lord that he gave in condemnation against the altar in Bethel, and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria, will definitely happen.”
33But even after all this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways. He went on choosing priests from all kinds of people. He appointed anyone who wanted to be a priest of the high places. 34It was because of this sin that the house of Jeroboam was wiped out, completely destroyed from the face of the earth.
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Dr. Jonathan Gallagher. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Version 4.3. For corrections send email to jonathangallagherfbv@gmail.com