1 Kings 13

1The 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.

2The 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!

3On that day the man of God also said: The Lord will give this sign: This altar will break apart, and the ashes on it will fall onto the ground

4When 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 hand became paralyzed. He could not move it.

5Then 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

6The king asked the man of God: Please talk to the Lord your God and pray for me and ask Him to heal my hand. The man of God prayed, and the king’s hand was right again. It was the same as it had been before.

7The king said to the man of God: Come home with me and eat some food. I want to give you a gift.

8But the man of God said to the king: I will not come with you, not even if you give me half of your kingdom. I will not eat bread or drink water in this place.

9because the Lord told me: Do not eat bread or drink no water there and God also commanded me not to go back the same way I came.

10Then the man of God went home by another road. He did not go back the same way as he had come to Bethel.

11There was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came home and told their father what the man of God had done in Bethel and what he had said to the king.

12The father asked his sons: Which way did he go? And his sons showed their father which road the man of God from Judah had taken.

13The father told his sons to get his donkey and to put a saddle on it, and then he got onto the donkey

14The father rode and started to look for the man of God. He found the man of God sitting under an oak tree. The old prophet asked him: Are you the man of God who came from Judah? The man of God said: Yes, I am.

15The old prophet said to him: Come home with me and eat some bread.

16The man of God told the old prophet: No, I may not go back with you to your home. I may not eat bread or drink water in this place.

17because the Lord said to me: Do not eat bread or drink water in this place and do not go back on the road that you came by.

18The old prophet said to the man of God: I am also a prophet like you. An angel gave me a message from the Lord, and he said: You must bring the man of God to your house, and you must give him bread to eat and water to drink. But the old prophet lied to the man of God.

19Then the man of God went with the old prophet to his home, and he eat bread and drink water.

20While they sat at the table, the Lord talked to the old prophet who had told the man of God to come to his home.

21The 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.

22He said you must not come back and eat bread and drink water in this place, but you came back. You did what He said you must not do. That is why they will not bury you in the tomb of your grandfathers.

23After the man of God had finished eating bread and finished drinking water the old prophet who had told him to come back put a saddle on his donkey.

24The man of God went away and on his way a lion came and killed him. The man’s body lay on the road, and the donkey and the lion stood next to his body.

25Some people walked by, and they saw that the body of the man of God was lying on the road and that the lion was standing next to the body. They went and told it to the people in the town where the old prophet lived.

26The old prophet who had told the man of God to come back heard people talking about it and he said: It is the man of God who did not listen to the Lord. The Lord sent the lion to attack and kill him. It happened as the Lord told him.

27The old prophet told his sons to put a saddle on his donkey and they did it.

28He went, and he found the body of the man of God where it lay on the road. The donkey and the lion were still standing next to the body of the man of God. The lion had not eaten the body and it had not killed the donkey.

29The old prophet took the body of the man of God, and he put it on his donkey. He took the body back to his town to mourn for the man of God and to bury him.

30He put the body in his own grave and he mourned for him and said: Oh, my brother, I am sad.

31After he had buried the man of God, the old prophet said to his sons: When I die, you must bury me in this grave where I have buried the man of God. You must put my body next to his body

32because the Lord sent him and everything will happen that he said against the altar in Bethel and against all the places of sacrifice in the towns of Samaria, this is sure.

33After this, Jeroboam did not stop doing the bad things that he was doing. He continued to choose priests from other tribes, and not from the Levi tribe. Anyone who wanted to become a priest could be a priest at the altars that he had built.

34This was the sin that Jeroboam and his family did, and that is why there is not one of his family that is still a king.