1 Kings 13
1 One day a prophet, obeying what Yahweh commanded him to do, went from Judah [north] to Bethel. He arrived there right at the time that Jeroboam was standing at the altar, ready to burn incense.
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.
2 Saying what Yahweh told him to say, the prophet shouted, “This is what Yahweh says [about this] altar [APO]: ‘I want you to know that [some day] a descendant [MTY] of King David will be born. His name will be Josiah, and he will come here. He will slaughter at this altar the priests who are burning incense for sacrifices on the hills [in this area], and he will burn the bones of dead people on this altar.’” [APO]
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.
3 Then the prophet also said, “This is what will prove to you that Yahweh has said this: This altar will be split apart, and the ashes that are on it will be scattered.’”
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.
4 When King Jeroboam heard the prophet say that, he pointed his finger at him and said to his servants, “Seize that man!” But immediately the king’s arm became paralyzed/stiff, with the result that he could not move it.
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.
5 And the altar immediately split apart, and the ashes spilled out [on the ground], which is what the prophet said that Yahweh [MTY] had predicted would happen.
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.
6 Then the king said to the prophet, “Please pray that Yahweh will be merciful to me and heal my arm!” So the prophet prayed, and Yahweh completely healed the king’s arm.
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.
7 Then the king said to the prophet, “Come home with me and eat some food. And I will also give you a reward [for what you have done]!”
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.
8 But the prophet replied, “Even if you would [promise to] give me half of everything that you own [MTY], I will not go with you, and I will not eat or drink anything with you here,
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;
9 because Yahweh commanded me not to eat or drink anything here. He also commanded me not to return home on the road on which I came here.”
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.
10 So he started to return home, but he did not go on the road on which he came to Bethel. He went on a different road.
So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.
11 At that time there was an old man living in Bethel who was a prophet. His sons came and told him what the prophet [from Judah] had done there on that day, and they also told him what the prophet had said to the king.
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.
12 Their father said, “On which road did he go?” So his sons showed him the road on which the prophet from Judah had gone [when he left Bethel].
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.
13 Then he said to his sons, “Put a saddle on my donkey.” So they did that, and he got on the donkey.
So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,
14 He went along the road to (find/catch up with) the prophet from Judah. He found him sitting under an oak tree. He said to him, “Are you the prophet who came from Judah?” He replied, “Yes, I am.”
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.
15 The old prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat some food.”
Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal.
16 He replied, “No, I am not allowed to go with you into your house, or to eat or drink anything with you,
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;
17 because Yahweh told me, ‘Do not eat or drink anything here, and do not return home on the road on which you came.’”
For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.
18 Then the old prophet said to him, “I also am a prophet, like you are. Yahweh sent an angel to tell me that I should take you home with me and give you some food and drink.” But the old man was lying [when he said that].
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.
19 But because of what the old prophet said, the prophet from Judah returned with him to his home and ate some food and drank some water with him.
So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.
20 While they were sitting at the table, Yahweh spoke to the old man.
But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back;
21 Then he cried out to the prophet from Judah, “This is what Yahweh says: ‘You have disobeyed him, and you have not done what he commanded you to do.
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,
22 Instead, you have come back here and had things to eat and drink in a place where he commanded you not to do that. As a result, you will be killed, and your body will not be buried in the grave where your ancestors are buried.’”
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.
23 When they had finished eating, the old man put a saddle on the donkey for the prophet from Judah, [and the prophet from Judah left].
Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.
24 But as he was going, a lion met him and killed him. The prophet’s corpse was lying on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it, and the lion was also standing beside the corpse.
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.
25 Some men passed by and were surprised to see the corpse on the road and the lion standing next to the corpse. So they went into Bethel and reported what they had seen.
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.
26 When the old man who had brought the prophet from Judah to his home heard about it, he said, “That is the prophet who disobeyed what Yahweh told him to do! That is why Yahweh allowed the lion to attack him and kill him. That is what Yahweh said would happen!”
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.
27 Then he said to his sons, “Put a saddle on my donkey.” So they did that.
And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.
28 Then he rode on the donkey and found the prophet’s corpse on the road, and his donkey and the lion were still standing there alongside the corpse. But the lion had not eaten any of the flesh of the prophet and had not attacked the donkey.
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.
29 The old man picked up the corpse of the prophet and put it on his donkey and brought it back to Bethel, in order to mourn for him and to bury his corpse.
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.
30 He buried the prophet’s corpse in the grave where other people in his family [had been buried]. Then he and his sons mourned for him, saying, “[We are very sorry], my brother!”
And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!
31 After they had buried him, the old man said to his sons, “When I die, bury my corpse in the grave where we buried the prophet from Judah. Lay my corpse next to his corpse.
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.
32 [And do not forget what he said, because] the things that Yahweh told him to say about the altar in Bethel, and about the shrines on the hills in the towns in Samaria, will surely happen.”
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.
33 But King Jeroboam still did not turn away from continuing to do evil things. Instead, he appointed more priests [who were not descended from Levi]. Anyone who wanted to be a priest, he appointed to be a priest, in order that he could offer sacrifices on the hills.
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.
34 Because he committed that sin, [a few years later] God got rid of most of Jeroboam’s descendants and did not allow them to become kings of Israel.
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.
