Old/New Testament
Secession of the Northern Tribes(A)
12 Rehoboam traveled to Shechem because all of Israel went there to install him as king. 2 Nebat’s son Jeroboam heard about it while he was still in Egypt, where he had fled to get away from King Solomon. Jeroboam returned from Egypt 3 after being summoned. When Jeroboam and the entire assembly of Israel arrived, they spoke to Rehoboam, 4 “Your father made our burdens unbearable.[a] Therefore lighten your father’s requirements and his heavy burdens that he placed on us, and we’ll serve you.”
5 “Come again in three days,” Rehoboam[b] told them. So the people left 6 while King Rehoboam conferred with his advisors who had worked for his father Solomon during his administration. He asked them, “What is your advice as to how I should respond to these people?”
7 They advised him, “If today you are a servant, you will serve this people by answering them and speaking kindly to them. Then they will serve you forever.”
8 But Rehoboam[c] ignored the counsel that his elder advisors had given him. Instead, he consulted the younger men who had grown up with him and who worked for[d] him. 9 As a result, he asked them, “What’s your advice so that we can give an answer to these people who have asked me, ‘Please lighten the burden that your father put on us.’?”
10 “This is what you should tell these people who asked you ‘Your father made our burden heavy, but you must make it lighter for us!’” the young men who grew up with Rehoboam[e] replied. “Tell them, ‘My little finger will be thicker than my father’s whole body![f] 11 Not only that, but since my father loaded you down heavily, I’m going to add to that burden. My father disciplined you with whips, but I’m going to discipline you with scorpions!’”
12 So Jeroboam and all the people went back to Rehoboam on the third day, just as they had been directed when the king said, “Come back again in three days.” 13 But the king gave the people a harsh response, because he was ignoring the counsel that his elders had given him. 14 Instead, Rehoboam[g] spoke to them along the lines of what the younger men suggested. He told them, “My father burdened you heavily, but I will add to that burden. If my father disciplined you with whips, I’m going to discipline you with scorpions!”
15 The king would not listen to the people, because the turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill his prediction that the Lord spoke by means of Ahijah the Shilonite to Nebat’s son Jeroboam. 16 When all of Israel saw that the king wasn’t listening to them, the people responded to the king’s message, “What’s the point in following David? We have no inheritance in the descendants of Jesse. Let’s go home,[h] Israel! David, take care of your own household!’ So Israel left for home.[i] 17 And so Rehoboam ruled over the Israelis who lived in the cities of Judah.
18 King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of conscripted labor, but all of Israel stoned him to death, and King Rehoboam had to jump in his chariot and flee back in a hurry to Jerusalem. 19 That’s how Israel came to be in rebellion against David’s dynasty to this day.
Jeroboam Reigns over Israel(B)
20 Now when all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him and invited him to visit their assembly, where they installed him as king over all of Israel. Nobody (with the sole exception of the tribe of Judah) would align with David’s dynasty. 21 As soon as Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled 180,000 elite soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, intending to attack the dynasty of Israel and restore the kingdom to Solomon’s son Rehoboam. 22 But a message from God came to Shemaiah, a man of God: 23 “Tell Solomon’s son Rehoboam, king of Judah, all the dynasty of Judah, Benjamin, and the rest of the people, 24 ‘This is what the Lord says: “You are not to fight or even approach your fellow Israelis in battle. Every soldier is to return to his own home, because this development comes from me.”’” So they listened to what the Lord had to say and returned home,[j] just as the Lord had directed.
Jeroboam’s Idolatry
25 Later on, Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. He also expanded from there and built Penuel. 26 Jeroboam was thinking to himself, “The kingdom is about to return to David’s control.[k] 27 If these people keep going up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the Lord there, the hearts of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. Then they’ll kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah!” 28 So the king sought some advice and then built two golden calves and announced, “It’s too difficult for you to travel to Jerusalem. So here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” 29 He set one of them in Bethel and placed the other one in Dan. 30 Doing this was sinful, because the people traveled as far as Dan to appear before one of their idols.[l] 31 Jeroboam[m] built temples on the high places, and appointed his own priests from the fringe elements of the people who were not descendants of Levi.
32 Jeroboam invented a festival for the fifteenth day of the eighth month similar to the festival that takes place in Judah. He approached the altar that he had set up in Bethel and sacrificed to the calves that he had made, having stationed in Bethel the priests that he had appointed. 33 Then, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, he went up to burn incense on the altar that he had set up in Bethel, thus beginning the festival that he had made up out of his own heart for the Israelis.
Josiah’s Desecration Predicted by a Man of God
13 Right when Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn some incense, a man of God arrived in Bethel from Judah in obedience to a command from the Lord. 2 He cursed[n] the altar in this[o] message from the Lord: “Hey altar! Hey altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘Pay attention to this! A son is going to be born in David’s dynasty. His name will be Josiah. He will sacrifice the priests who burn incense on you in these high places. Human bones will be burned on you!’”[p]
3 Later that same day, he gave them a special display of power[q] of what was to come when he said, “Here’s proof[r] that the Lord has decreed this:[s] Look! This altar will be split apart and the ashes that are on it will spill out.”
4 When he heard the man of God curse[t] the altar in Bethel, the king pointed at the man of God from where the king was standing at the altar. “Seize him!” he ordered. But all of a sudden his hand that he had stretched out dried up, and he could not bring it back to his side! 5 Also, the altar broke apart and the ashes that were on it spilled out from the altar, providing just the proof that the man of God had predicted in his message from the Lord!
6 “Please!” the king begged the man of God, “Ask the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored for me!” So the man of God asked the Lord, and the king’s hand was immediately and fully restored, just like it had been before. 7 So the king told the man of God, “Come back to my palace and rest a while. I’d like to give you a reward.”
8 But the man of God replied to the king, “Even if you were to offer me half of your house, I wouldn’t go with you, and I’m sure not going to eat even a piece of bread or drink water in this place, 9 because the Lord commanded me specifically, ‘You are not to eat bread, drink water, or return by the way that you came to arrive here!’” 10 Then he left, returning a different way than the one by which he had traveled to Bethel.
An Old Prophet Rebukes the Man of God
11 Now there was an old prophet who lived in Bethel, and his sons went to him and told him everything that the man of God had accomplished that day in Bethel, including the message that he had delivered to the king. 12 “Which way did he go?” their father asked him, since his sons had observed the way that the man of God had taken to return to Judah from Bethel. 13 “Saddle my donkey for me!” he ordered.[u] So they saddled the donkey for him 14 and he rode off after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree.[v] “You’re the man of God who came from Judah, aren’t you?” the old prophet[w] asked him.
“I am,” he replied.
15 “Come home with me and have a meal,” he told him.
16 But he replied, “I can’t go back with you to your home, be in your company, or even eat food or drink water with you in this place, 17 because I’ve been given a command in the form of this message from the Lord: ‘You are to eat no food, drink no water, and do not return to Judah[x] by traveling the way by which you go there.’”
18 “I’m a prophet like you,” the old man replied, “and an angel spoke to me and delivered this message from the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house and give him food and water.’” But he was lying, 19 and the man of God[y] accompanied the old prophet[z] back to his house, ate some food, and drank some water.
20 Later, while they were sitting down at the table, a message from the Lord was delivered to the prophet who had brought him back, 21 so he cried out to the man of God from Judah: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because you disobeyed a command from the Lord and haven’t done what the Lord your God commanded you to do, 22 but instead you returned to eat and drink in the very place that he told you “Eat no food and drink no water,” your body will not be buried in the same grave as your ancestors.’”
A Lion Kills the Man of God
23 After the meal was over, and the man had eaten food and had drunk water, the old prophet saddled the donkey for him—that is, for the man of God whom he had brought back. 24 Not long after the man of God[aa] had left, a lion met him along the road and killed him. His body was left lying in the middle of the road with the donkey standing beside it and with the lion also standing next to the body. 25 When some men passed by and noticed the body lying in the middle of the road and the lion standing beside the body, they went straight to the city and told what had happened in the city where the old prophet lived.
26 The prophet who had brought the man of God[ab] back from the road learned about it. “It’s the man of God who disobeyed the message from the Lord,” he said. “That’s why the Lord gave him to that lion, which mauled him and killed him, just as the message from the Lord told me to rebuke him.” 27 Then he ordered his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they did. 28 The old prophet[ac] went out and located the body on the road where the donkey and the lion were standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. 29 The prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to the city where the old man lived so he could mourn and bury him.
30 He buried the corpse in his own grave and his family mourned for him, crying out, “Oh, no! My brother!”
31 After he had buried the man of God,[ad] he gave these instructions to his children: “When I die, bury me in the same grave in which the man of God is buried. Place my bones beside his, 32 because what he predicted by a message from the Lord against the altar in Bethel and the temples built in the high places of the cities of Samaria will certainly come about.”
33 Despite everything that happened, Jeroboam never did repent of his evil practices. Instead, he appointed even more people to act as priests for the high places. Anyone who wanted to be a priest was ordained to be a priest in the high places. 34 This practice became so sinful that the Lord decided[ae] to erase Jeroboam’s dynasty, thus eliminating it from the face of the earth.
The Plot to Kill Jesus(A)
22 Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near. 2 So the high priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put him to death, because they were afraid of the crowd.
3 But Satan went into Judas called Iscariot, who belonged to the circle[a] of the Twelve. 4 So he went off and discussed with the high priests and the Temple police how he could betray Jesus[b] to them. 5 They were delighted, and agreed to give him money. 6 Judas[c] accepted their offer and began to look for a good opportunity to betray Jesus[d] to them when no crowd was present.
The Passover with the Disciples(B)
7 Then the day of the Festival[e] of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed. 8 So Jesus[f] sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover meal.”
9 They asked him, “Where do you want us to prepare it?”
10 He told them, “Just after you go into the city, a man carrying a jug of water will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters 11 and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks you, “Where is the room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?”’ 12 Then he will show you a large upstairs room that is furnished. Get things ready for us there.” 13 So they went and found everything just as Jesus[g] had told them, and they prepared the Passover meal.
The Lord’s Supper(C)
14 Now when the hour came, Jesus[h] took his place at the table, along with his apostles. 15 He told them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover meal with you before I suffer, 16 because I tell all of you,[i] I will never eat it again until it finds its fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves, 18 because I tell you, from now on I will never drink the product of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 Then he took a loaf of bread, gave thanks, broke it in pieces, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Keep on doing this in memory of me.”
20 He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed[j] by my blood, which is being poured out for you. 21 Yet look! The hand of the man who is betraying me is with me on the table! 22 The Son of Man is going away, just as it has been determined, but how terrible it will be for that man by whom he is betrayed!” 23 Then they began to discuss among themselves which one of them was going to do this.
An Argument about Greatness
24 Now an argument sprang up among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. 25 But he told them, “The kings of the unbelievers[k] lord it over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors. 26 But you are not to do so. On the contrary, the greatest among you should become like the youngest, and the one who leads should become like the one who serves. 27 Because who is greater, the one who sits at the table, or the one who serves? It is the one at the table, isn’t it? But I’m among you as one who serves.
28 “You are the ones who have always stood by me in my trials. 29 And I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred a kingdom[l] on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit down on thrones to govern the twelve tribes of Israel.”
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