1 Kings 13
1 Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings.
The 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.
2 And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you.
He 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.”
3 The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given: See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned.
The 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.”
4 Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.
When 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.
5 And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.
The altar split apart, and the ashes spilled out from it, fulfilling the sign that the man of God had given from the Lord.
6 Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.
Then 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.
7 And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.
Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to my home and have a meal so I can give you a present.”
8 But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place;
But 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.
9 For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came.
The Lord ordered me not to eat or drink anything, and not to return by the way I came.”
10 So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.
So he went a different way—he did not return the way he had come to Bethel.
11 Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king.
It so happened that an old prophet lived in Bethel. His sons 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 Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.
“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 So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,
“Saddle up a donkey for me,” he told his sons. They saddled up a donkey and he got on.
14 And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.
He 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 Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal.
“Come home with me and have something to eat,” he told him.
16 But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place;
“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 For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.
“The Lord ordered me, saying ‘You must not eat or drink anything there, or return by the way you came.’”
18 Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him.
But 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.
19 So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.
So the man of God went back with him, and ate and drank in his house.
20 But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back;
As they were sitting at the table, a message from the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back.
21 And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord,
He 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,
22 But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers.
instead 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.”
23 Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.
After the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his own donkey for him.
24 And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.
But 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.
25 And some men, going by, saw the body stretched out in the road with the lion by its side; and they came and gave news of it in the town where the old prophet was living.
Some 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.
26 Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said.
When 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.”
27 And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.
The prophet told his sons, “Saddle up a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey,
28 And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side: the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass.
and 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.
29 Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping.
The 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.
30 And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!
He laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him, crying, “My poor brother!”
31 And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones.
After 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.
32 For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.
For 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.”
33 After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places.
But 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.
34 And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.
This was because of this sin that the house of Jeroboam was wiped out, completely destroyed from the face of the earth.
