Old/New Testament
Civil War
12 Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt where he had run away from Solomon. When he heard about Solomon’s death, he returned to his city, Zeredah, in the hills of Ephraim.[a]
Rehoboam and all the Israelites went to Shechem to make him the king. The people said to Rehoboam, 4 “Your father forced us to work very hard. Now, make it easier for us. Stop the heavy work that your father forced us to do and we will serve you.”
5 Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days, and I will answer you.” So the people left.
6 There were some older men who had helped Solomon make decisions when he was alive. So King Rehoboam asked these men what he should do. He said, “How do you think I should answer the people?”
7 They answered, “If you are like a servant to them today, they will sincerely serve you. If you speak kindly to them, they will always work for you.”
8 But Rehoboam did not listen to the advice from the older men. He asked the young men who were his friends. 9 Rehoboam asked them, “The people said, ‘Give us easier work than your father gave us.’ How do you think I should answer them? What should I tell them?”
10 Then the young men who grew up with him answered, “Those people came to you and said, ‘Your father forced us to work very hard. Now make our work easier.’ So you should tell them, ‘My little finger is stronger than my father’s whole body. 11 My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work much harder! My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with whips that have sharp metal tips.’”
12 Three days later, Jeroboam and all the people came back as Rehoboam had said. 13 King Rehoboam did not listen to the advice from the older men, and he was rude to the people. 14 He did what his friends told him to do and said, “My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work much harder! My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with whips that have sharp metal tips.” 15 So the king did not do what the people wanted. The Lord caused this to happen. He did this in order to keep the promise he made to Jeroboam son of Nebat when he sent the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh to speak to him.
16 The Israelites saw that the new king refused to listen to them, so they said to him,
“We are not part of David’s family are we?
We don’t get any of Jesse’s land, do we?
So, people of Israel, let’s go home
and let David’s son rule his own people!”
So the Israelites went home. 17 But Rehoboam still ruled over the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah.
18 A man named Adoniram was one of the men who directed the workers. King Rehoboam sent Adoniram to talk to the people, but the Israelites threw stones at him until he died. King Rehoboam ran to his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel rebelled against the family of David, and this is how things are even today.
20 When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had come back, they called him to a meeting and made him king over all Israel. The tribe of Judah was the only tribe that continued to follow the family of David.
21 Rehoboam went back to Jerusalem and gathered together an army of 180,000 men from the families of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. Rehoboam wanted to go fight against the Israelites and take back his kingdom. 22 But God spoke to a prophet named Shemaiah. He said, 23 “Talk to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to men of Judah and Benjamin. 24 Say to them, ‘The Lord says that you must not go to war against your brothers. Everyone, go home! I made all this happen.’” So all the men in Rehoboam’s army obeyed the Lord. They went home, just as the Lord had commanded.
25 Jeroboam rebuilt the city of Shechem, in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there. Later he went to the city of Penuel[b] and rebuilt it.
26-27 Jeroboam said to himself, “If the people keep going to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the Lord’s Temple, someday they will want to be ruled by their old masters. They will want to be ruled by King Rehoboam of Judah. And then they will kill me.” 28 So the king asked his advisors what to do. They gave him their advice, and King Jeroboam made two golden calves. He said to the people, “You don’t have to go to Jerusalem to worship anymore. Israel, these are the gods that brought you out of Egypt.[c]” 29 King Jeroboam put one golden calf in Bethel and the other one in the city of Dan.[d] 30 What a terrible sin this was, because the Israelites started going to the cities of Dan and Bethel[e] to worship the calves.
31 Jeroboam also built temples at the high places and chose priests from among the different tribes of Israel. (He did not choose priests only from the tribe of Levi.) 32 Then King Jeroboam started a new festival that was like the festival[f] in Judah, but it was on the 15th day of the eighth month. At this time the king offered sacrifices on the altar at Bethel. He and the priests he chose offered the sacrifices to the calves that he had set up at the high places he had made. 33 So King Jeroboam chose his own time for a festival for the Israelites, the 15th day of the eighth month. And during that time he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the altar he had built at Bethel.
God Speaks Against Bethel
13 The Lord commanded a man of God from Judah to go to the city of Bethel. King Jeroboam was standing at the altar offering incense when the man of God arrived. 2 The Lord had commanded the man of God to speak against the altar. He said,
“Altar, the Lord says to you: ‘David’s family will have a son. His name will be Josiah. The priests of the high places are now burning incense on you, but Josiah will offer the priests on you and burn human bones on you, so you can never be used again!’”
3 The man of God gave proof to the people that this would happen. He said, “This is the proof that the Lord told me about. He said, ‘This altar will break apart, and the ashes on it will fall onto the ground.’”
4 When King Jeroboam heard the message from the man of God about the altar in Bethel, he took his hand off the altar and pointed at the man. He said, “Arrest that man!” But when the king said this, his arm became paralyzed. He could not move it. 5 Then the altar broke into pieces, and all its ashes fell onto the ground. This proved that what the man of God had said came from the Lord. 6 Then King Jeroboam said to the man of God, “Please pray to the Lord your God for me. Ask him to heal my arm.”
So the man of God prayed to the Lord, and the king’s arm was healed, as it was before. 7 Then the king said to the man of God, “Please come home with me. Come and eat with me. I will give you a gift.”
8 But the man of God said to the king, “I will not go home with you, even if you give me half of your kingdom! I will not eat or drink anything in this place. 9 The Lord commanded me not to eat or drink anything here. He also commanded me not to go back the same way I came.” 10 So he took a different road home. He did not go back the same way he came to Bethel.
11 There was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came and told him what the man of God did in Bethel and what he said to King Jeroboam. 12 The old prophet said, “Which way did he go when he left?” So the sons showed their father which road the man of God from Judah had taken. 13 The old prophet told his sons to saddle his donkey. They put the saddle on the donkey, and the prophet left.
14 The old prophet went after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked him, “Are you the man of God who just came from Judah?”
The man of God answered, “Yes, I am.”
15 So the old prophet said, “Please come home and eat with me.”
16 But the man of God said, “I cannot go home with you. I cannot eat or drink anything in this place. 17 The Lord said to me, ‘You must not eat or drink anything in that place, and you must go back on a different road.’”
18 The old prophet lied to him and said, “But I am a prophet like you. And an angel from the Lord came to me and told me to bring you home and give you something to eat and drink.”
19 So the man of God went to the old prophet’s house and ate and drank with him. 20 While they were sitting at the table, the Lord spoke to the old prophet, 21 and the old prophet spoke to the man of God from Judah. He said, “The Lord said that you did not obey him! You did not do what he commanded. 22 He told you not to eat or drink anything in this place, but you came back here and ate and drank. So your body will not be buried in your family grave.”
23 The man of God finished eating and drinking. Then the old prophet saddled the man’s donkey for him and the man left. 24 On the way home, a lion attacked and killed the man of God. His body was lying on the road while the lion stood next to it. The donkey stood nearby. 25 Some people came walking by and saw the body and the lion standing by it. They went into the city where the old prophet lived and told people what they had seen on the road.
26 The old prophet heard the story and said, “This is the man of God who did not obey the Lord’s command, so the Lord sent a lion to attack him. The lion has killed him, just as the Lord said would happen.” 27 Then the prophet told his sons to saddle his donkey, and they did so. 28 The old prophet went to find the body lying on the road. The donkey and the lion were still standing near it. The lion had not eaten the body or hurt the donkey.
29 The old prophet put the body on his donkey and carried it back to the city to cry for him and bury him. 30 The old prophet buried the man in his own family grave. The old prophet cried for him and said, “Oh, my brother, I am sorry for you.” 31 So the old prophet buried the body. Then he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in this same grave. Put my bones next to his. 32 The Lord used him to speak against the altar at Bethel and against the high places in the other towns in Samaria. And what he said will certainly happen.”
33 King Jeroboam did not change. He continued doing evil. He continued to choose people from different tribes to serve as priests[g] at the high places. Whoever wanted to be a priest was allowed to be one. 34 This is the sin that caused the ruin and destruction of his kingdom.
The Jewish Leaders Plan to Kill Jesus(A)
22 It was almost time for the Jewish Festival of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover. 2 The leading priests and teachers of the law wanted to kill Jesus. But they were trying to find a quiet way to do it, because they were afraid of what the people would do.
Judas Agrees to Help Jesus’ Enemies(B)
3 One of Jesus’ twelve apostles was named Judas Iscariot. Satan entered him, 4 and he went and talked with the leading priests and some of the soldiers who guarded the Temple. He talked to them about a way to hand Jesus over to them. 5 The priests were very happy about this. They promised to give Judas money for doing this. 6 He agreed. Then he waited for the best time to hand him over to them. He wanted to do it when no one was around to see it.
The Passover Meal(C)
7 The Day of Unleavened Bread[a] came. This was the day when the Jews always killed the lambs for the Passover. 8 Jesus said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us to eat.”
9 They said to him, “Where do you want us to prepare the meal?”
He said to them, 10 “When you go into the city, you will see a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him. He will go into a house. 11 Tell the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks that you please show us the room where he and his followers can eat the Passover meal.’ 12 Then the owner will show you a large room upstairs that is ready for us. Prepare the meal there.”
13 So Peter and John left. Everything happened the way Jesus said. So they prepared the Passover meal.
The Lord’s Supper(D)
14 The time came for them to eat the Passover meal. Jesus and the apostles were together at the table. 15 Jesus said to them, “I wanted very much to eat this Passover meal with you before I die. 16 I will never eat another Passover meal until it is given its full meaning in God’s kingdom.”
17 Then Jesus took a cup of wine. He gave thanks to God for it and said, “Take this cup and give it to everyone here. 18 I will never drink wine again until God’s kingdom comes.”
19 Then he took some bread and thanked God for it. He broke off some pieces, gave them to the apostles and said, “This bread is my body that I am giving for you. Eat this to remember me.” 20 In the same way, after supper, Jesus took the cup of wine and said, “This wine represents the new agreement from God to his people. It will begin when my blood is poured out for you.”[b]
Who Will Turn Against Jesus?
21 Jesus said, “But here on this table is the hand of the one who will hand me over to my enemies. 22 The Son of Man will do what God has planned. But it will be very bad for the one who hands over the Son of Man to be killed.”
23 Then the apostles asked each other, “Which one of us would do that?”
Be Like a Servant
24 Later, the apostles began to argue about which one of them was the most important. 25 But Jesus said to them, “The kings of the world rule over their people, and those who have authority over others want to be called ‘the great providers for the people.’ 26 But you must not be like that. The one with the most authority among you should act as if he is the least important. The one who leads should be like one who serves. 27 Who is more important: the one serving or the one sitting at the table being served? Everyone thinks it’s the one being served, right? But I have been with you as the one who serves.
28 “You men have stayed with me through many struggles. 29 So I give you authority to rule with me in the kingdom the Father has given me. 30 You will eat and drink at my table in that kingdom. You will sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International