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Stop Living in Your Head: Capturing Those Dreams and Making Them a Reality

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Holy, Not Superhuman

Faith in Hard Times

Greatest Journey!

Returning Home: A Journey of Grace Through the Parable of the Prodigal Son

Stormproof

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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bk1KI">
 <div class="chapter ch12" data-usfm="1KI.12">
 <div class="label">12</div><div class="s1">Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam</div><div class="p"> 1Rehoboam went to Shechem, 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 from King Solomon), he returned from#12:2 Or he remained in Egypt. 3So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: 4&#8220;Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 5Rehoboam answered, &#8220;Go away for three days and then come back to me.&#8221; So the people went away.</div><div class="p"> 6Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. &#8220;How would you advise me to answer these people?&#8221; he asked.</div><div class="p"> 7They replied, &#8220;If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 8But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. 9He asked them, &#8220;What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, &#8216;Lighten the yoke your father put on us&#8217;?&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 10The young men who had grown up with him replied, &#8220;These people have said to you, &#8216;Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.&#8217; Now tell them, &#8216;My little finger is thicker than my father&#8217;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.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 12Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, &#8220;Come back to me in three days.&#8221; 13The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, 14he followed the advice of the young men and said, &#8220;My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.&#8221; 15So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.</div><div class="p"> 16When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:</div><div class="q1">&#8220;What share do we have in David,</div><div class="q2">what part in Jesse&#8217;s son?</div><div class="q1">To your tents, Israel!</div><div class="q2">Look after your own house, David!&#8221;</div><div class="m">So the Israelites went home. 17But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.</div><div class="p"> 18King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram,#12:18 Some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac (see also 4:6 and 5:14); Hebrew Adoram who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. 19So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.</div><div class="p"> 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.</div><div class="p"> 21When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered all Judah and the tribe of Benjamin&#8212;a hundred and eighty thousand able young men&#8212;to go to war against Israel and to regain the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.</div><div class="p"> 22But this word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: 23&#8220;Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, to all Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, 24&#8216;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.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221; So they obeyed the word of the Lord and went home again, as the Lord had ordered.</div><div class="s1">Golden Calves at Bethel and Dan</div><div class="p"> 25Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel.#12:25 Hebrew Penuel, a variant of Peniel</div><div class="p"> 26Jeroboam thought to himself, &#8220;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, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 28After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, &#8220;It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.&#8221; 29One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other.#12:30 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text; Masoretic Text people went to the one as far as Dan</div><div class="p"> 31Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. 32He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, 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. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bk1KI">
 <div class="chapter ch13" data-usfm="1KI.13">
 <div class="label">13</div><div class="s1">The Man of God From Judah</div><div class="p"> 1By the word of the Lord a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. 2By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: &#8220;Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: &#8216;A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221; 3That same day the man of God gave a sign: &#8220;This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 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, &#8220;Seize him!&#8221; 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.</div><div class="p"> 6Then the king said to the man of God, &#8220;Intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.&#8221; So the man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king&#8217;s hand was restored and became as it was before.</div><div class="p"> 7The king said to the man of God, &#8220;Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 8But the man of God answered the king, &#8220;Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. 9For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: &#8216;You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221; 10So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.</div><div class="p"> 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, &#8220;Which way did he go?&#8221; And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. 13So he said to his sons, &#8220;Saddle the donkey for me.&#8221; 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, &#8220;Are you the man of God who came from Judah?&#8221;</div><div class="p">&#8220;I am,&#8221; he replied.</div><div class="p"> 15So the prophet said to him, &#8220;Come home with me and eat.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 16The man of God said, &#8220;I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. 17I have been told by the word of the Lord: &#8216;You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 18The old prophet answered, &#8220;I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord: &#8216;Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221; (But he was lying to him.) 19So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.</div><div class="p"> 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, &#8220;This is what the Lord says: &#8216;You have defied 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.&#8217;&#8198;&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 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 lion 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.</div><div class="p"> 26When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, &#8220;It is the man of God who defied 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.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 27The prophet said to his sons, &#8220;Saddle the donkey for me,&#8221; 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, and they mourned over him and said, &#8220;Alas, my brother!&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 31After burying him, he said to his sons, &#8220;When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones 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 places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 33Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest he consecrated for the high places. 34This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its destruction from the face of the earth.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
 <div class="book bk1KI">
 <div class="chapter ch14" data-usfm="1KI.14">
 <div class="label">14</div><div class="s1">Ahijah&#8217;s Prophecy Against Jeroboam</div><div class="p"> 1At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, 2and Jeroboam said to his wife, &#8220;Go, disguise yourself, so you won&#8217;t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there&#8212;the one who told me I would be king over this people. 3Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.&#8221; 4So Jeroboam&#8217;s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah&#8217;s house in Shiloh.</div><div class="p">Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. 5But the Lord had told Ahijah, &#8220;Jeroboam&#8217;s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 6So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, &#8220;Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have been sent to you with bad news. 7Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: &#8216;I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 8I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.</div><div class="p"> 10&#8220;&#8198;&#8216;Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel&#8212;slave or free.#14:10 Or Israel&#8212;every ruler or leader I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. 11Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken!&#8217;</div><div class="p"> 12&#8220;As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. 13All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good.</div><div class="p"> 14&#8220;The Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. Even now this is beginning to happen.#14:14 The meaning of the Hebrew for this sentence is uncertain. 15And the Lord will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they aroused the Lord&#8217;s anger by making Asherah poles.#14:15 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in 1 Kings 16And he will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 17Then Jeroboam&#8217;s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As soon as she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died. 18They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, as the Lord had said through his servant the prophet Ahijah.</div><div class="p"> 19The other events of Jeroboam&#8217;s reign, his wars and how he ruled, are written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel. 20He reigned for twenty-two years and then rested with his ancestors. And Nadab his son succeeded him as king.</div><div class="s1">Rehoboam King of Judah</div><div class="p"> 21Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel in which to put his Name. His mother&#8217;s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite.</div><div class="p"> 22Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. 23They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. 24There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.</div><div class="p"> 25In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. 26He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. 27So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. 28Whenever the king went to the Lord&#8217;s temple, the guards bore the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.</div><div class="p"> 29As for the other events of Rehoboam&#8217;s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 30There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 31And Rehoboam rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. His mother&#8217;s name was Naamah; she was an Ammonite. And Abijah#14:31 Some Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint (see also 2 Chron. 12:16); most Hebrew manuscripts Abijam his son succeeded him as king.</div>
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