1 Kings 13

¹And behold, a man of God came from Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel, while Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings.

²And he cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah is his name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones shall be burned upon you.

³And he gave on that day a sign, saying, This is the sign that the LORD has spoken: Behold, the altar shall be torn apart, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.

⁴And it happened, when the king heard the word of the man of God that he had cried out against the altar in Bethel, that Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, 'Seize him!' But his hand, which he had stretched out against him, withered, and he could not draw it back to himself.

⁵And the altar was torn apart, and the ashes were poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

⁶And the king answered and said to the man of God, Entreat now the favor of the Lord your God, and pray on my behalf, that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God entreated the favor of the Lord, and the hand of the king was restored to him and became as it was before.

⁷And the king spoke to the man of God, 'Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a gift.'

⁸And the man of God said to the king, If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you, and I will not eat bread nor drink water in this place.

⁹For thus he 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.'

¹⁰And he went by another way, and he did not return by the way by which he had come to Bethel.

¹¹Now a certain old prophet was dwelling in Bethel, and his son came and recounted to him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel, and the words that he had spoken to the king; and they recounted them to their father.

¹²And their father said to them, 'Which is the way he went?' And his sons saw the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

¹³And he said to his sons, 'Saddle the donkey for me.' And they saddled the donkey for him, and he rode on it.

¹⁴And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under the terebinth, and he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

¹⁵And he said to him, 'Come home with me and eat bread.'

¹⁶And he said, I am not able to return with you or to go with you, and I will not eat bread nor drink water with you in this place.

¹⁷For a word came to me by the word of the Lord, 'You shall not eat bread nor drink water there, nor return to go by the way which you came by.'

¹⁸And 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, that he may eat bread and drink water. He lied to him.

¹⁹So he returned with him and ate bread in his house and drank water.

²⁰And it happened, as they were sitting 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 had come from Judah, saying, 'Thus says the Lord: Because you have rebelled against the mouth of the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you,'

²²but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place of which he said to you, Eat no bread and drink no water, your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.

²³And it happened, 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.

²⁴And he went, and a lion found him on the way and killed him, and his corpse was flung down on the way, and the donkey was standing beside it, and the lion was standing beside the corpse.

²⁵And behold, men were passing by, and they saw the carcass thrown in the road, and the lion standing beside the carcass; and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.

²⁶And the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard, and he said, It is the man of God who disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and the Lord gave him to the lion, and it mauled him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken to him.

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

²⁸And he went and found his carcass thrown in the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside the carcass; the lion had not eaten the carcass nor broken the donkey.

²⁹And the prophet lifted up the corpse 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.

³⁰And he laid his carcass in his own grave, and they mourned over him, 'Alas, my brother!'

³¹And it happened, after he had buried him, that he said to his sons, saying, When I die, you shall bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For the word that 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 that are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.

³³After this thing Jeroboam did not turn back from his evil way, but again he made from the ends of the people priests of the high places; whoever desired it, he would consecrate him, that he might become one of the priests of the high places.

³⁴By this thing the house of Jeroboam became sin, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.