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¹Now behold, a man of God came from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD, while Jeroboam was standing at the altar to burn incense.

²And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “Altar, altar, this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall burn on you.’ ”

³Then he gave a sign on the same day, saying, “This is the sign which the LORD has spoken: ‘Behold, the altar shall be torn to pieces and the ashes which are on it shall be poured out.’ ”

⁴Now when the king heard the statement of the man of God which he cried out against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him!” But his hand which he had stretched out toward him dried up, and he could not draw it back to himself.

⁵The altar also was torn to pieces and the ashes were poured out from the altar, in accordance with the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

⁶And the king responded and said to the man of God, “Please appease the LORD your God and pray for me, so that my hand may be restored to me.” So the man of God appeased the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored to him, and it became as it was before.

⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a gift.”

⁸But the man of God said to the king, “If you were to give me half your house, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water in this place.

⁹For so it was commanded me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘You shall not eat bread nor drink water, nor return by the way that you came.’ ”

¹⁰So he went another way and did not return by the way that he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now an old prophet was living in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the deeds which the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words which he had spoken to the king, these also they reported to their father.

¹²And their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” Now his sons had seen the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

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

¹⁴So he 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.”

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

¹⁶But he said, “I cannot return with you, nor come with you, nor will I eat bread or drink water with you in this place.

¹⁷For a command came to me by the word of the LORD: ‘You shall not eat bread, nor drink water there; do not return by going the way that you came.’ ”

¹⁸Then he said to him, “I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” But he lied to him.

¹⁹So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house and drank water.

²⁰Now it came about, as they were sitting down at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back;

²¹and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you have disobeyed the command of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,

²²but have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which He said to you, “You are not to eat bread nor drink water”; your dead body will not come to the grave of your fathers.’ ”

²³It came about after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, for the prophet whom he had brought back.

²⁴Now when he had gone, a lion met him on the way and killed him, and his body was thrown on the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion also was standing beside the body.

²⁵And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown on the road, and the lion standing beside the body; so they came and told about it in the city where the old prophet had lived.

²⁶Now when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard about it, he said, “It is the man of God, who disobeyed the command of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He spoke to him.”

²⁷Then he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it.

²⁸Then he went and found his body thrown on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside the body; the lion had not eaten the body nor harmed the donkey.

²⁹So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back; and he came to the city of the old prophet to mourn and to bury him.

³⁰He laid his body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, “Oh, my brother!”

³¹And after he had buried him, he talked to his sons, saying, “When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For the thing will certainly come to pass which he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar that is in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria.”

³³After this event, Jeroboam did not abandon his evil way, but he again appointed priests of the high places from all the people; anyone who wanted, he ordained, and he became one of the priests of the high places.

³⁴This event also became a sin of the house of Jeroboam, even to wipe it out and eliminate it from the face of the earth.

¹At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick.

²And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Now arise and disguise yourself so that they will not know that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Behold, Ahijah the prophet is there, who said regarding me that I would be king over this people.

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

⁴And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and set out and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah could not see because his eyes were glossy from his old age.

⁵Now the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Behold, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to inquire of you about her son, because he is sick. You shall say such and such to her, for it will be when she arrives, that she is going to make herself unrecognizable.”

⁶So when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet coming in the doorway, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam; why do you make yourself unrecognizable? Nevertheless, I am sent to you with a harsh message.

⁷Go, say to Jeroboam, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel says: “Because I exalted you from among the people and made you leader over My people Israel,

⁸and tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you—yet you have not been like My servant David, who kept My commandments and followed Me with all his heart, to do only that which was right in My sight;

⁹you also have done more evil than all who were before you, and you have gone and made for yourself other gods and cast metal images to provoke Me to anger, and have thrown Me behind your back—

¹⁰therefore behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam, and I will eliminate from Jeroboam every male person, both bond and free in Israel, and I will make a clean sweep of the house of Jeroboam, just as one sweeps away dung until it is all gone.

¹¹Anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city, the dogs will eat. And anyone who dies in the field, the birds of the sky will eat; for the LORD has spoken it.” ’

¹²Now you, arise, go to your house. When your feet enter the city the child will die.

¹³Then all Israel will mourn for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam’s family will come to the grave, because in him something good was found toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

¹⁴Moreover, the LORD will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who will eliminate the house of Jeroboam this day and from now on.

¹⁵“For the LORD will strike Israel, just as a reed sways in the water; and He will uproot Israel from this good land which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the LORD to anger.

¹⁶He will give up Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he committed and with which he misled Israel into sin.”

¹⁷Then Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed, and came to Tirzah. As she was entering the threshold of the house, the child died.

¹⁸Then all Israel buried him and mourned for him, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He had spoken through His servant Ahijah the prophet.

¹⁹Now as for the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰And the time that Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years; and he lay down with his fathers, and his son Nadab reigned in his place.

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

²²And the people of Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and they provoked Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, more than all that their fathers had done.

²³For they, too, built for themselves high places, memorial stones, and Asherim on every high hill and under every luxuriant tree.

²⁴There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They committed all the same abominations of the nations which the LORD dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

²⁵Now it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, that Shishak the king of Egypt marched against Jerusalem.

²⁶And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house, and he took everything; he even took all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

²⁷So King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place, and entrusted them to the care of the commanders of the guard who guarded the doorway of the king’s house.

²⁸And it happened as often as the king entered the house of the LORD, that the guards would carry them and would bring them back into the guards’ room.

²⁹Now as for the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

³¹And Rehoboam lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. And his son Abijam became king in his place.

¹Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah.

²He reigned for three years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom.

³He walked in all the sins of his father which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, like the heart of his father David.

⁴But for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem,

⁵because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and did not deviate from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

⁶And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.

⁷Now as for the rest of the acts of Abijam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

⁸And Abijam lay down with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David; and his son Asa became king in his place.

⁹So in the twentieth year of Jeroboam the king of Israel, Asa began to reign as king of Judah.

¹⁰He reigned for forty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom.

¹¹Now Asa did what was right in the sight of the LORD, like his father David.

¹²He also removed the male cult prostitutes from the land and removed all the idols which his fathers had made.

¹³And even his mother Maacah, he also removed her from the position of queen mother, because she had made an abominable image as an Asherah; and Asa cut down her abominable image and burned it at the brook Kidron.

¹⁴But the high places were not eliminated; nevertheless Asa’s heart was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days.

¹⁵And he brought into the house of the LORD the holy gifts of his father and his own holy gifts: silver, gold, and valuable utensils.

¹⁶Now there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

¹⁷Baasha king of Israel marched against Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa king of Judah.

¹⁸Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that was left in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the treasuries of the king’s house, and handed it over to his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying,

¹⁹“Let’s make a treaty between you and me, as there was between my father and your father. Behold, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold; go, break your treaty with Baasha king of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.”

²⁰So Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel, and conquered Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth, besides all the land of Naphtali.

²¹When Baasha heard about it, he stopped fortifying Ramah and remained in Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah—no one was exempt—and they carried away the stones of Ramah and its timber with which Baasha had built fortifications. And King Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah.

²³Now as for the rest of all the acts of Asa and all his might, and all that he did and the cities which he built, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.

²⁴And Asa lay down with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of his father David; and his son Jehoshaphat reigned in his place.

²⁵Now Nadab the son of Jeroboam became king over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel for two years.

²⁶He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father and in his sin into which he misled Israel.

²⁷Then Baasha the son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar conspired against him, and Baasha struck and killed him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, while Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon.

²⁸So Baasha killed him in the third year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his place.

²⁹And as soon as he was king, he struck and killed all the household of Jeroboam. He did not leave Jeroboam any persons alive, but kept killing until he had eliminated them, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He spoke by His servant Ahijah the Shilonite,

³⁰and because of the sins of Jeroboam which he committed, and into which he misled Israel, because of his provocation with which he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger.

³¹Now as for the rest of the acts of Nadab and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

³²And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

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

³⁴And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin into which he misled Israel.