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¹At the LORD’s command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, arriving there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to burn incense.

²Then at the LORD’s command, he shouted, “O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you.”

³That same day the man of God gave a sign to prove his message. He said, “The LORD has promised to give this sign: This altar will split apart, and its ashes will be poured out on the ground.”

⁴When King Jeroboam heard the man of God speaking against the altar at Bethel, he pointed at him and shouted, “Seize that man!” But instantly the king’s hand became paralyzed in that position, and he couldn’t pull it back.

⁵At the same time a wide crack appeared in the altar, and the ashes poured out, just as the man of God had predicted in his message from the LORD.

⁶The king cried out to the man of God, “Please ask the LORD your God to restore my hand again!” So the man of God prayed to the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored and he could move it again.

⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to the palace with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift.”

⁸But the man of God said to the king, “Even if you gave me half of everything you own, I would not go with you. I would not eat or drink anything in this place.

⁹For the LORD gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’”

¹⁰So he left Bethel and went home another way.

¹¹As it happened, there was an old prophet living in Bethel, and his sons came home and told him what the man of God had done in Bethel that day. They also told their father what the man had said to the king.

¹²The old prophet asked them, “Which way did he go?” So they showed their father which road the man of God had taken.

¹³“Quick, saddle the donkey,” the old man said. So they saddled the donkey for him, and he mounted it.

¹⁴Then he rode after the man of God and found him sitting under a great tree. The old prophet asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “Yes, I am,” he replied.

¹⁵Then he said to the man of God, “Come home with me and eat some food.”

¹⁶“No, I cannot,” he replied. “I am not allowed to eat or drink anything here in this place.

¹⁷For the LORD gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’”

¹⁸But the old prophet answered, “I am a prophet, too, just as you are. And an angel gave me this command from the LORD: ‘Bring him home with you so he can have something to eat and drink.’” But the old man was lying to him.

¹⁹So they went back together, and the man of God ate and drank at the prophet’s home.

²⁰Then while they were sitting at the table, a command from the LORD came to the old prophet.

²¹He cried out to the man of God from Judah, “This is what the LORD says: You have defied the word of the LORD and have disobeyed the command the LORD your God gave you.

²²You came back to this place and ate and drank where he told you not to eat or drink. Because of this, your body will not be buried in the grave of your ancestors.”

²³After the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the old prophet saddled his own donkey for him,

²⁴and the man of God started off again. But as he was traveling along, a lion came out and killed him. His body lay there on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it.

²⁵People who passed by saw the body lying in the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and reported it in Bethel, where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet heard the report, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the LORD’s command. The LORD has fulfilled his word by causing the lion to attack and kill him.”

²⁷Then the prophet said to his sons, “Saddle a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey,

²⁸and he went out and found the body lying in the road. The donkey and lion were still standing there beside it, for the lion had not eaten the body nor attacked the donkey.

²⁹So the prophet laid the body of the man of God on the donkey and took it back to the town to mourn over him and bury him.

³⁰He laid the body in his own grave, crying out in grief, “Oh, my brother!”

³¹Afterward the prophet 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 the LORD told him to proclaim against the altar in Bethel and against the pagan shrines in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”

³³But even after this, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil ways. He continued to choose priests from the common people. He appointed anyone who wanted to become a priest for the pagan shrines.

³⁴This became a great sin and resulted in the utter destruction of Jeroboam’s dynasty from the face of the earth.

¹At that time Jeroboam’s son Abijah became very sick.

²So Jeroboam told his wife, “Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you as my wife. Then go to the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh — the man who told me I would become king.

³Take him a gift of ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and ask him what will happen to the boy.”

⁴So Jeroboam’s wife went to Ahijah’s home at Shiloh. He was an old man now and could no longer see.

⁵But the LORD had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife will come here, pretending to be someone else. She will ask you about her son, for he is very sick. Give her the answer I give you.”

⁶So when Ahijah heard her footsteps at the door, he called out, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else?” Then he told her, “I have bad news for you.

⁷Give your husband, Jeroboam, this message from the LORD, the God of Israel: ‘I promoted you from the ranks of the common people and made you ruler over my people Israel.

⁸I ripped the kingdom away from the family of David and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who obeyed my commands and followed me with all his heart and always did whatever I wanted.

⁹You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made other gods for yourself and have made me furious with your gold calves. And since you have turned your back on me,

¹⁰I will bring disaster on your dynasty and will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel. I will burn up your royal dynasty as one burns up trash until it is all gone.

¹¹The members of Jeroboam’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures. I, the LORD, have spoken.’”

¹²Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, “Go on home, and when you enter the city, the child will die.

¹³All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only member of your family who will have a proper burial, for this child is the only good thing that the LORD, the God of Israel, sees in the entire family of Jeroboam.

¹⁴“In addition, the LORD will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam. This will happen today, even now!

¹⁵Then the LORD will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream. He will uproot the people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the LORD with the Asherah poles they have set up for worship.

¹⁶He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made Israel sin along with him.”

¹⁷So Jeroboam’s wife returned to Tirzah, and the child died just as she walked through the door of her home.

¹⁸And all Israel buried him and mourned for him, as the LORD had promised through the prophet Ahijah.

¹⁹The rest of the events in Jeroboam’s reign, including all his wars and how he ruled, are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰Jeroboam reigned in Israel twenty-two years. When Jeroboam died, his son Nadab became the next king.

²¹Meanwhile, Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen from among all the tribes of Israel as the place to honor his name. Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

²²During Rehoboam’s reign, the people of Judah did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, provoking his anger with their sin, for it was even worse than that of their ancestors.

²³For they also built for themselves pagan shrines and set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

²⁴There were even male and female shrine prostitutes throughout the land. The people imitated the detestable practices of the pagan nations the LORD had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites.

²⁵In the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign, King Shishak of Egypt came up and attacked Jerusalem.

²⁶He ransacked the treasuries of the LORD’s Temple and the royal palace; he stole everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.

²⁷King Rehoboam later replaced them with bronze shields as substitutes, and he entrusted them to the care of the commanders of the guard who protected the entrance to the royal palace.

²⁸Whenever the king went to the Temple of the LORD, the guards would also take the shields and then return them to the guardroom.

²⁹The rest of the events in Rehoboam’s reign and everything he did are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah.

³⁰There was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

³¹When Rehoboam died, he was buried among his ancestors in the City of David. His mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. Then his son Abijam became the next king.

¹Abijam began to rule over Judah in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam’s reign in Israel.

²He reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah, the granddaughter of Absalom.

³He committed the same sins as his father before him, and he was not faithful to the LORD his God, as his ancestor David had been.

⁴But for David’s sake, the LORD his God allowed his descendants to continue ruling, shining like a lamp, and he gave Abijam a son to rule after him in Jerusalem.

⁵For David had done what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight and had obeyed the LORD’s commands throughout his life, except in the affair concerning Uriah the Hittite.

⁶There was war between Abijam and Jeroboam throughout Abijam’s reign.

⁷The rest of the events in Abijam’s reign and everything he did are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah. There was constant war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

⁸When Abijam died, he was buried in the City of David. Then his son Asa became the next king.

⁹Asa began to rule over Judah in the twentieth year of Jeroboam’s reign in Israel.

¹⁰He reigned in Jerusalem forty-one years. His grandmother was Maacah, the granddaughter of Absalom.

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

¹²He banished the male and female shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made.

¹³He even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother because she had made an obscene Asherah pole. He cut down her obscene pole and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

¹⁴Although the pagan shrines were not removed, Asa’s heart remained completely faithful to the LORD throughout his life.

¹⁵He brought into the Temple of the LORD the silver and gold and the various items that he and his father had dedicated.

¹⁶There was constant war between King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel.

¹⁷King Baasha of Israel invaded Judah and fortified Ramah in order to prevent anyone from entering or leaving King Asa’s territory in Judah.

¹⁸Asa responded by removing all the silver and gold that was left in the treasuries of the Temple of the LORD and the royal palace. He sent it with some of his officials to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon, son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus, along with this message:

¹⁹“Let there be a treaty between you and me like the one between your father and my father. See, I am sending you a gift of silver and gold. Break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel so that he will leave me alone.”

²⁰Ben-hadad agreed to King Asa’s request and sent the commanders of his army to attack the towns of Israel. They conquered the towns of Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, and all Kinnereth, and all the land of Naphtali.

²¹As soon as Baasha of Israel heard what was happening, he abandoned his project of fortifying Ramah and withdrew to Tirzah.

²²Then King Asa sent an order throughout Judah, requiring that everyone, without exception, help to carry away the building stones and timbers that Baasha had been using to fortify Ramah. Asa used these materials to fortify the town of Geba in Benjamin and the town of Mizpah.

²³The rest of the events in Asa’s reign — the extent of his power, everything he did, and the names of the cities he built — are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah. In his old age his feet became diseased.

²⁴When Asa died, he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. Then Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son, became the next king.

²⁵Nadab son of Jeroboam began to rule over Israel in the second year of King Asa’s reign in Judah. He reigned in Israel two years.

²⁶But he did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and followed the example of his father, continuing the sins that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit.

²⁷Then Baasha son of Ahijah, from the tribe of Issachar, plotted against Nadab and assassinated him while he and the Israelite army were laying siege to the Philistine town of Gibbethon.

²⁸Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of King Asa’s reign in Judah, and he became the next king of Israel.

²⁹He immediately slaughtered all the descendants of King Jeroboam, so that not one of the royal family was left, just as the LORD had promised concerning Jeroboam by the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh.

³⁰This was done because Jeroboam had provoked the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, by the sins he had committed and the sins he had led Israel to commit.

³¹The rest of the events in Nadab’s reign and everything he did are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel.

³²There was constant war between King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel.

³³Baasha son of Ahijah began to rule over all Israel in the third year of King Asa’s reign in Judah. Baasha reigned in Tirzah twenty-four years.

³⁴But he did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and followed the example of Jeroboam, continuing the sins that Jeroboam had led Israel to commit.