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¹A man of God came, however, from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD while Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense.

²The man of God cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD: “Altar, altar, this is what the LORD says, ‘A son will be born to the house of David, named Josiah, and he will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who are burning incense on you. Human bones will be burned on you.’”

³He gave a sign that day. He said, “This is the sign that the LORD has spoken: ‘The altar will now be ripped apart, and the ashes that are on it will be poured out.’”

⁴When the king heard the message that the man of God had cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Arrest him!” But the hand he stretched out against him withered, and he could not pull it back to himself.

⁵The altar was ripped apart, and the ashes poured from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

⁶Then the king responded to the man of God, “Plead for the favor of the LORD your God and pray for me so that my hand may be restored to me.” So the man of God pleaded for the favor of the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it had been at first.

⁷Then the king declared to the man of God, “Come home with me, refresh yourself, and I’ll give you a reward.”

⁸But the man of God replied, “If you were to give me half your house, I still wouldn’t go with you, and I wouldn’t eat food or drink water in this place,

⁹for this is what I was commanded by the word of the LORD: ‘You must not eat food or drink water or go back the way you came.’”

¹⁰So he went another way; he did not go back by the way he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

¹²Then their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” His sons had seen the way taken by the man of God who had come from Judah.

¹³Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him, and he got on it.

¹⁴He followed the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “I am,” he said.

¹⁵Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat some food.”

¹⁶But he answered, “I cannot go back with you or accompany you; I will not eat food or drink water with you in this place.

¹⁷For a message came to me by the word of the LORD: ‘You must not eat food or drink water there or go back by the way you came.’”

¹⁸He said to him, “I am also a prophet like you. An angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat food and drink water.’” The old prophet deceived him,

¹⁹and the man of God went back with him, ate food in his house, and drank water.

²⁰While they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back,

²¹and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you rebelled against the LORD’s command and did not keep the command that the LORD your God commanded you —

²²but you went back and ate food and drank water in the place that he said to you, “Do not eat food and do not drink water” — your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.’”

²³So after he had eaten food and after he had drunk, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet he had brought back.

²⁴When he left, a lion attacked him along the way and killed him. His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.

²⁵There were men passing by who saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and spoke about it in the city where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard about it, he said, “He is the man of God who disobeyed the LORD’s command. The LORD has given him to the lion, and it has mauled and killed him, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke to him.”

²⁷Then the old prophet instructed his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” They saddled it,

²⁸and he went and found the corpse thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse or mauled the donkey.

²⁹So the prophet lifted the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came into the city to mourn and to bury him.

³⁰Then he laid the corpse in his own grave, and they mourned over him: “Oh, my brother!”

³¹After he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones,

³²for the message that he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Samaria is certain to happen.”

³³Even after this, Jeroboam did not repent of his evil way but again made priests for the high places from the ranks of the people. He ordained whoever so desired it, and they became priests of the high places.

³⁴This was the sin that caused the house of Jeroboam to be cut off and obliterated from the face of the earth.

¹At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became sick.

²Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go disguise yourself, so they won’t know that you’re Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. The prophet Ahijah is there; it was he who told about me becoming king over this people.

³Take with you ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”

⁴Jeroboam’s wife did that: she went to Shiloh and arrived at Ahijah’s house. Ahijah could not see; he was blind due to his age.

⁵But the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming soon to ask you about her son, for he is sick. You are to say such and such to her. When she arrives, she will be disguised.”

⁶When Ahijah heard the sound of her feet entering the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you disguised? I have bad news for you.

⁷Go tell Jeroboam, ‘This is what the LORD God of Israel says: I raised you up from among the people, appointed you ruler over my people Israel,

⁸tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you. But you were not like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what is right in my sight.

⁹You behaved more wickedly than all who were before you. In order to anger me, you have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and cast images, but you have flung me behind your back.

¹⁰Because of all this, I am about to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will wipe out all of Jeroboam’s males, both slave and free, in Israel; I will sweep away the house of Jeroboam as one sweeps away dung until it is all gone!

¹¹Anyone who belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, the dogs will eat, and anyone who dies in the field, the birds will eat, for the LORD has spoken!’

¹²“As for you, get up and go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the boy will die.

¹³All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He alone out of Jeroboam’s house will be given a proper burial because out of the house of Jeroboam something favorable to the LORD God of Israel was found in him.

¹⁴The LORD will raise up for himself a king over Israel, who will wipe out the house of Jeroboam. This is the day, yes, even today!

¹⁵For the LORD will strike Israel so that they will shake as a reed shakes in water. He will uproot Israel from this good soil that he gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates because they made their Asherah poles, angering the LORD.

¹⁶He will give up Israel because of Jeroboam’s sins that he committed and caused Israel to commit.”

¹⁷Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As she was crossing the threshold of the house, the boy died.

¹⁸He was buried, and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of the LORD he had spoken through his servant the prophet Ahijah.

¹⁹As for the rest of the events of Jeroboam’s reign, how he waged war and how he reigned, note that they are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.

²⁰The length of Jeroboam’s reign was twenty-two years. He rested with his fathers, and his son Nadab became king in his place.

²¹Now Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king; he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to put his name. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.

²²Judah did what was evil in the LORD’s sight. They provoked him to jealous anger more than all that their ancestors had done with the sins they committed.

²³They also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree;

²⁴there were even male cult prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites.

²⁵In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt went to war against Jerusalem.

²⁶He seized the treasuries of the LORD’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace. He took everything. He took all the gold shields that Solomon had made.

²⁷King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and committed them into the care of the captains of the guards who protected the entrance to the king’s palace.

²⁸Whenever the king entered the LORD’s temple, the guards would carry the shields, then they would take them back to the armory.

²⁹The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written about in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings.

³⁰There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout their reigns.

³¹Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. His son Abijam became king in his place.

¹In the eighteenth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah,

²and he reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

³Abijam walked in all the sins his father before him had committed, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God as his ancestor David had been.

⁴But for the sake of David, the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up his son after him and by preserving Jerusalem.

⁵For David did what was right in the LORD’s sight, and he did not turn aside from anything he had commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hethite.

⁶There had been war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of Rehoboam’s life.

⁷The rest of the events of Abijam’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. There was also war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

⁸Abijam rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. His son Asa became king in his place.

⁹In the twentieth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Asa became king of Judah,

¹⁰and he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

¹¹Asa did what was right in the LORD’s sight, as his ancestor David had done.

¹²He banished the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all of the idols that his fathers had made.

¹³He also removed his grandmother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

¹⁴The high places were not taken away, but Asa was wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his entire life.

¹⁵He brought his father’s consecrated gifts and his own consecrated gifts into the LORD’s temple: silver, gold, and utensils.

¹⁶There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel throughout their reigns.

¹⁷Israel’s King Baasha went to war against Judah. He built Ramah in order to keep anyone from leaving or coming to King Asa of Judah.

¹⁸So Asa withdrew all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of the LORD’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace and gave it to his servants. Then King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon son of Hezion king of Aram who lived in Damascus, saying,

¹⁹“There is a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold. Go and break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.”

²⁰Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel. He attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, all Chinnereth, and the whole land of Naphtali.

²¹When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stayed in Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa gave a command to everyone without exception in Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then King Asa built Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah with them.

²³The rest of all the events of Asa’s reign, along with all his might, all his accomplishments, and the cities he built, are written in the Historical Record of Judah’s Kings. But in his old age he developed a disease in his feet.

²⁴Then Asa rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his ancestor David. His son Jehoshaphat became king in his place.

²⁵Nadab son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in the second year of Judah’s King Asa; he reigned over Israel two years.

²⁶Nadab did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and walked in the ways of his father and the sin he had caused Israel to commit.

²⁷Then Baasha son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar conspired against Nadab, and Baasha struck him down at Gibbethon of the Philistines while Nadab and all Israel were besieging Gibbethon.

²⁸In the third year of Judah’s King Asa, Baasha killed Nadab and reigned in his place.

²⁹When Baasha became king, he struck down the entire house of Jeroboam. He did not leave Jeroboam any survivors but destroyed his family according to the word of the LORD he had spoken through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite.

³⁰This was because Jeroboam had angered the LORD God of Israel by the sins he had committed and had caused Israel to commit.

³¹The rest of the events of Nadab’s reign, along with all his accomplishments, are written in the Historical Record of Israel’s Kings.

³²There was war between Asa and King Baasha of Israel throughout their reigns.

³³In the third year of Judah’s King Asa, Baasha son of Ahijah became king over all Israel, and he reigned in Tirzah twenty-four years.

³⁴He did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and walked in the ways of Jeroboam and the sin he had caused Israel to commit.