1 Kings 13-15

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

13 And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.

² The man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you shall he offer the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.

³ And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has spoken: Behold, the altar shall be split and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. [Fulfilled in II Kings 23:15, 16.]

⁴ When King Jeroboam heard the words the man of God cried against the altar in Bethel, he thrust out his hand, saying, Lay hold on him! And his hand which he put forth against him dried up, so that he could not draw it to him again.

⁵ The altar also was split and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

⁶ And the king said to the man of God, Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God entreated the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before.

⁷ And the king said to the man of God, Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.

⁸ And the man of God said to the king, If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you, and I will not eat bread or drink water in this place.

⁹ For I was commanded by the word of the Lord, You shall eat no bread or drink water or return by the way you came.

¹⁰ So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.

¹¹ Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words which he had spoken to the king they told also to their father.

¹² Their father asked them, Which way did he go? For his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

¹³ He said to his sons, Saddle the donkey for me. So they saddled the donkey and he rode on it

¹⁴ And went after the man of God. And he found him sitting under an oak, and he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

¹⁵ Then he said to him, Come home with me and eat bread.

¹⁶ He said, I may not return with you or go in with you, neither will I eat bread or drink water with you in this place.

¹⁷ For I was told by the word of the Lord, You shall not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way that you came.

¹⁸ He answered, I am a prophet also, as you are. And an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied to him.

¹⁹ So the man from Judah went back with him and ate and drank water in his house.

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

²¹ And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, Thus says the Lord: Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the command which the Lord your God commanded you,

²² But have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which the Lord said to you, Eat no bread and drink no water—your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.

²³ And after the prophet of the house had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the man he had brought back.

²⁴ And when he had gone, a lion met him by the road and slew him, and his corpse was cast in the way, and the donkey stood by it; the lion also stood by the corpse.

²⁵ And behold, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown in the road, and the lion standing by the corpse, and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.

²⁶ When the prophet who brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord; therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and slain him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him.

²⁷ And he said to his sons, Saddle the donkey for me. And they saddled it.

²⁸ And he went and found the corpse thrown in the road, and the donkey and the lion stood by the body; the lion had not eaten the corpse or torn the donkey.

²⁹ The prophet took up the corpse of the man of God and laid it upon the donkey and brought it back, and the old prophet came into the city to mourn and to bury him.

³⁰ And he laid the body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!

³¹ After he had buried him, he said to his sons, When I am dead, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

³² For the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.

³³ After this thing, Jeroboam turned not from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people. Whoever would, he consecrated, that there might be priests for the high places.

³⁴ And this thing became the sin of the dynasty of Jeroboam that caused it to be abolished and destroyed from the face of the earth.

14 Then Abijah [the little] son of Jeroboam became sick.

² And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray you, and disguise yourself, that you may not be recognized as Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. Behold, Ahijah the prophet is there, who told me that I should be king over this people.

³ Take ten loaves, some cakes, and a bottle of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what shall happen to the child.

⁴ Jeroboam’s wife did so. She arose and went [twenty miles] to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were dim because of his age.

⁵ And the Lord said to Ahijah, Behold, the ^[a]wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask you concerning her son, for he is sick. Thus and thus shall you say to her. When she came, she pretended to be another woman.

⁶ But when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came in at the door, he said, Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another? For I am charged with heavy news for you.

⁷ Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because I exalted you from among the people and made you leader over My people Israel

⁸ And rent the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you—and yet you have not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments and followed Me with all his heart, to do only what was right in My eyes,

⁹ But have done evil above all who were before you; for you have made yourself other gods, molten images, to provoke Me to anger and have cast Me behind your back—

¹⁰ Therefore behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from [him] every male, both bond and free, in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam as a man sweeps away dung, till it is all gone.

¹¹ Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and any who dies in the field the birds of the heavens shall eat. For the Lord has spoken it.

¹² Arise therefore [Ano, Jeroboam’s wife], get to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die.

¹³ And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam’s family shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good and pleasing to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.

¹⁴ Moreover, the Lord will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam this day. From now on

¹⁵ The Lord will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will root up Israel out of this good land which He gave to their fathers and will scatter them beyond the [Euphrates] River, because they have made their Asherim [idolatrous symbols of the goddess Asherah], provoking the Lord to anger.

¹⁶ He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam which he has sinned and made Israel to sin.

¹⁷ So Jeroboam’s wife departed and came to Tirzah. When she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.

¹⁸ And all Israel buried him and mourned for him, according to the word of the Lord spoken by His servant Ahijah the prophet.

¹⁹ The rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰ Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years, and he slept with his fathers; and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

²¹ And Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel to put His Name [and the pledge of His presence] there. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess.

²² And Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, Whom they provoked to jealousy with the sins they committed, above all that their fathers had done.

²³ For they also built themselves [idolatrous] high places, pillars, and Asherim [idolatrous symbols of the goddess Asherah] on every high hill and under every green tree.

²⁴ There were also sodomites (male cult prostitutes) in the land. They did all the abominations of the nations whom the Lord cast out before the Israelites.

²⁵ In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt [Jeroboam’s brother-in-law] came up against Jerusalem.

²⁶ He took away the treasures of the house of the Lord and of the king’s house; he took away all, including all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

²⁷ King Rehoboam made in their stead bronze shields and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who kept the door of the king’s house.

²⁸ And as often as the king went into the house of the Lord, the guards bore them and brought them back into the guardroom.

²⁹ The rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰ There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

³¹ Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. Abijam (Abijah) his son reigned in his stead.

15 In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah.

² He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother was Maacah (Micaiah) daughter [granddaughter] of Abishalom (Absalom).

³ He walked in all the sins of his father [Rehoboam] before him; and his heart was not blameless with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father [forefather].

⁴ Nevertheless, for David’s sake the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem,

⁵ Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

⁶ There was war between [Abijam’s father] Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of [Rehoboam’s] life.

⁷ The rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

⁸ Abijam slept with his fathers and they buried him in the City of David. Asa his son reigned in his stead.

⁹ In the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah.

¹⁰ Forty-one years he reigned in Jerusalem. His mother was [also named] Maacah (Micaiah) daughter of Abishalom (Absalom).^(A)

¹¹ And Asa did right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father [forefather].

¹² He put away the sodomites (male cult prostitutes) out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers [Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijam] had made or promoted.^(B)

¹³ Also Maacah his mother he removed from being queen mother, because she had an image made for [the goddess] Asherah. Asa destroyed her image, burning it by the brook Kidron.

¹⁴ But the high places were not removed. Yet Asa’s heart was blameless with the Lord all his days.

¹⁵ He brought the things which his father had dedicated and the things which he himself had dedicated into the house of the Lord—silver, gold, and vessels.

¹⁶ There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

¹⁷ Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah and built up Ramah, that he might allow no one to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah.

¹⁸ Then Asa took all the silver and gold left in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king’s house and delivered them into the hands of his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, who dwelt at Damascus, saying,

¹⁹ Let there be a league between me and you, as was between my father and your father. Behold, I am sending you a present of silver and gold; go, break your league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may withdraw from me.

²⁰ So Ben-hadad hearkened to king Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.

²¹ When Baasha heard of it, he quit building up Ramah and dwelt in Tirzah.

²² Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah—none was exempted. They carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had been building. And King Asa built up with them Geba of Benjamin, and also Mizpah.

²³ The rest of all the acts of Asa, all his might, all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.

²⁴ Asa slept with his fathers and was buried with them in the city of David his father. Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.

²⁵ Nadab son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned two years.

²⁶ He did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in his sin, with which he made Israel sin.

²⁷ Baasha son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar conspired against Nadab, and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, for Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon.

²⁸ In the third year of Asa king of Judah Baasha slew Nadab and reigned in his stead.

²⁹ As soon as he was king, Baasha killed all the household of Jeroboam. He left to [it] not one who breathed, until he had destroyed it, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by His servant Ahijah the Shilonite—^(C)

³⁰ Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned and by which he made Israel to sin, and because of his provocation of the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger.

³¹ The rest of Nadab’s acts, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

³² There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

³³ In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah began his reign of twenty-four years over all Israel in Tirzah.

³⁴ He did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, with which he made Israel sin.