Prophecies against Jeroboam
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📚And just then a man of God✭ came to Bethel from Judah✭ by the word of the LORD; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense✭. 2 📚And the man cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus says the LORD: ‘Look, a child will be born to the house of David, Josiah✭ by name; and he will offer on you the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones will be burned on you.’ ” 3 📚✭And he gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign which the LORD has spoken: ‘Look, the altar will split apart and the ashes on it will spill out.’ ”4 📚Then this happened: when king Jeroboam heard the words of the man of God who cried out against the altar in Bethel, he put out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him✭!” And his hand, which he stretched out against him, withered, so that he could not pull it back to him. 5 📚And the altar split apart and the ashes spilled out of the altar, in accordance with the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.
6 📚And the king answered and said to the man of God, “Please plead with the face of the LORD your God, and pray✭ for me, that my hand may be restored to me”. And the man of God pleaded with the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it was before.
7 📚And the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward✭”.
8 📚✭And the man of God said to the king, “Even if you would give me half your house, I would not go in with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place, 9 📚because this is what the word of the LORD commanded me, saying, ‘Eat no bread and drink no water, and do not return by the same way that you go.’ ” 10 So he went another way, and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.
11 📚✭Now an old prophet lived in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel, and they told their father the words which he had spoken to the king. 12 And their father said to them, “What way did he go?” For his sons saw the way the man of God who came from Judah had gone. 13 📚And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me”. So they saddled the donkey for him, and he rode on it.
14 📚And went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. And he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” And he said, “I am”.
15 ✭Then he said to him, “Come home with me, and eat bread”.
16 📚✭And he said, “I cannot return with you or go in with you, and I will not eat bread or drink water with you in this place, 17 📚because it was said to me by the word of the LORD, ‘You shall not eat bread or drink water there, or return by the way that you go.’ ”
18 📚He said to him, “I am also a prophet, just as you are; and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house, so that he can eat bread and drink water.’ ” But he lied to him✭.
19 📚✭So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water. 20 📚✭And it came about, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who brought him back, 21 📚✭and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word spoken by the mouth of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, 22 📚✭but came back and ate bread and drank water in the place concerning which the LORD said to you, Eat no bread and drink no water, your dead body will not go to the tomb of your fathers.’ ”
23 And it came about after he ate bread and after he drank, he saddled the donkey for him, that is, for the prophet whom he brought back. 24 📚✭And as the man was going, a lion met him in the road and killed him. And his dead body was thrown down in the road, and the donkey stood by it, and the lion stood by the body. 25 📚And men appeared, passing by, and saw the body thrown down in the road, and the lion standing by the body; and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.
26 📚✭And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard this, he said, “It is the man of God, who was disobedient to the word of the LORD. Therefore the LORD has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, in accordance with the word of the LORD, which he spoke to him”.
27 And he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me”. And they saddled it for him. 28 📚And he went and found his body thrown down in the road, and the donkey and the lion standing by the body. The lion had not eaten the body, nor torn the donkey. 29 ✭And the prophet took up the body of the man of God, and laid it on the donkey and brought it back, and the old prophet came to the city to mourn and to bury him. 30 📚And he laid his body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”
31 📚And it came about, after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons, saying, “When I am dead, then bury me in the tomb where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones; 32 📚for the thing which he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely come true”.
33 📚After this incident Jeroboam did not turn✭ from his evil way, but again made priests for the high places from the lowest of the people. He consecrated whoever had the desire✭ to be a priest, and he became one of the priests of the high places. 34 📚And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it✭ from the face of the earth.