And at that moment there came a man of God from Judah by the word of Jehovah to Bethel while Jeroboam was standing at the altar to burn incense.

And he cried out against the altar by the word of Jehovah and said, Altar, O altar, thus says Jehovah: Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and he will sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and men's bones will they burn upon you.

And he gave a sign that day, saying, This is the sign that Jehovah has spoken: The altar here will be torn apart, and the ashes that are upon it will be poured out.

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

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

And the king responded and said to the man of God, Entreat Jehovah your God, I beg you, and intercede for me that my hand may be restored to me. And the man of God entreated Jehovah, and the king's hand was restored to him as it had been formerly.

Then the king said to the man of God, Come home with me, and have something to eat; and I will give you a gift.

But the man of God said to the king, If you gave me half your household, I would not go with you; and I will not eat food nor drink water in this place;

For thus was I commanded by the word of Jehovah, saying, You shall not eat food nor drink water, nor shall you return by the way that you came.

So he went by another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.

Now there was a certain old prophet dwelling in Bethel. And his  ¹sons came and related to him all the things that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; the words that he had spoken to the king, they also related to their father.

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

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

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

And he said to him, Come home with me, and eat some food.

But he said, I cannot return with you and go with you; neither will I eat food nor drink water with you in this place.

For I was told by the word of Jehovah, You shall not eat food nor drink water there, nor shall you return by going on the way that you came there.

And the old man said, I also am a prophet like you, and an angel has spoken to me by the word of Jehovah, saying, Bring him back with you to your house that he may eat food and drink water. He lied to him.

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

And while they were sitting at the table, the word of Jehovah came to the prophet who brought him back;

And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, Thus says Jehovah, Because you have rebelled against the word of Jehovah and did not keep the command that Jehovah your God commanded you,

But returned and ate food and drank water in the place concerning which He said to you, Do not eat food and do not drink water; your corpse shall not come to the grave of your fathers.

And after he had eaten food and had drunk water, the old man saddled the donkey for him, that is, for the prophet whom he had brought back.

And as he went, a lion met him on the way and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion stood beside the corpse also.

And some men soon passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside the corpse, and they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.

And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard it, he said, It is the man of God, who rebelled against the word of Jehovah; and Jehovah has given him to the lion, which tore him apart and killed him, according to the word of Jehovah which He spoke to him.

Then he spoke to his sons, saying, Saddle the donkey for me; and they saddled it.

And he went and found his corpse thrown on the road and the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse; the lion had not eaten the corpse, nor had it torn the donkey apart.

And the prophet took up the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back; and it was brought to the city of the old prophet for mourning and for burial.

And he laid his corpse in his own grave and mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!

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

For the word that he cried out by the word of Jehovah 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.

After this matter Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but he again made priests for the high places from among the people; whoever desired it, he  ¹consecrated to be priests of the high places.

And this matter became a sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as even to cut it off and destroy it from the face of the earth.

At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became ill.

And Jeroboam said to his wife, Rise up now, and disguise yourself so that no one will recognize that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there; it is he who spoke concerning me, that I should be king over this people.

And take in your hand ten loaves and some cakes and a cruse of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.

And Jeroboam's wife did so; that is, she rose up and went to Shiloh, and she came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were fixed because of his age.

But Jehovah said to Ahijah, The wife of Jeroboam has now come to seek a word from you concerning her son, for he is ill. Thus and thus shall you speak to her. And it will be that when she comes in, she will pretend to be another woman.

So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she entered through the door, he said, Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another woman? For I have a hard message for you.

Go and tell Jeroboam, Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Because I exalted you from among the people and made you ruler over My people Israel,

And I tore away the kingdom from the house of David and gave it to you; and yet you have not been like My servant David, who kept My commandments and who followed Me with all his heart, doing only what was upright in My sight,

But you have done more evil than all who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and idols, so as to provoke Me to anger; and you have cast Me behind your back —

Because of this then, I am now bringing evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, bond and free, in Israel; and I will sweep up after the house of Jeroboam as a man might sweep up dung until it is all gone.

Him of Jeroboam's who dies in the city, the dogs will eat; and him who dies in the field, the birds of heaven will eat; for Jehovah has spoken it.

Rise up then, and go to your house: When your feet enter the city, the child will die.

And all Israel will mourn for him and bury him, for he alone of Jeroboam's will go into the grave, because in him some good thing toward Jehovah the God of Israel was found among the house of Jeroboam.

And Jehovah will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam this day and even now.

And Jehovah will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will uproot Israel out of this good land, which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the  ¹River, because they made their Asherahs, provoking Jehovah to anger.

And He will give Israel up on account of the sins of Jeroboam, by which he sinned and by which he caused Israel to sin.

And Jeroboam's wife rose up and departed, and she came to Tirzah. As she came to the threshold of the house, the boy died.

And all Israel buried him and mourned for him according to the word of Jehovah, which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the prophet.

And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he waged war and how he reigned, they are there written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

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

And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where Jehovah had chosen, out of all the tribes of Israel, to put His name. And his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.

And Judah did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah and provoked Him to jealousy because of the sins which they committed, above all the sins which their fathers had committed.

And they also built for themselves high places and pillars and Asherahs on every high hill and under every flourishing tree,

And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They acted according to all the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed before the children of Israel.

Then in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.

And he took away the treasures of the house of Jehovah and the treasures of the king's house; indeed he took away all. And he took away all the shields of gold that Solomon had made.

And King Rehoboam made shields of bronze in their place and committed them into the hands of the captains of the guard, who kept the door of the king's house.

And whenever the king went into the house of Jehovah, the guards carried them and returned them to the guardroom.

And 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?

And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.

And Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess.

And Abijam his son reigned in his place.

And in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Abijam began to reign over Judah.

He reigned three years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God like the heart of David his father.

Yet for  ¹David's sake Jehovah his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, raising up his son after him and establishing Jerusalem;

Because David did what was upright in the sight of Jehovah and did not turn aside from anything that He had commanded him all the days of his life, except in the  ¹matter of Uriah the Hittite.

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

And 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.

And Abijam slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David.

And Asa his son reigned in his place.

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

And he reigned forty-one years in Jerusalem, and his  ¹mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

And Asa did what was upright in the sight of Jehovah, as David his father had done.

And he put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

And he also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for  ¹Asherah. And Asa cut down her abominable image and burned it at the brook Kidron.

But the high places were not removed; otherwise the heart of Asa was perfect with Jehovah all his days.

And he brought into the house of Jehovah the things his father had sanctified and the things he sanctified, silver and gold and vessels.

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

And Baasha the king of Israel went up against Judah; and he built Ramah to prevent anyone from going out or coming in to Asa the king of Judah.

And Asa took all the silver and gold that was left among the treasures of the house of Jehovah as well as the treasures of the king's house, and gave them into the hands of his servants. And King Asa sent them forth to Ben-hadad the son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, the king of Syria, who dwelt in Damascus, saying,

There is an alliance between me and you, between my father and your father. I am now sending you a present of silver and gold; go and break your alliance with Baasha the king of Israel, so that he goes away from me.

And Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the captains of forces that he had against the cities of Israel, and he struck Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-maacah and all Chinneroth with all the land of Naphtali.

And when Baasha heard this, he stopped building Ramah and dwelt in Tirzah.

Then 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 it; and King Asa built with these Geba of Benjamin and Mizpah.

And the rest of all the acts of Asa and all his might and all that he did and the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Yet in the time of his old age he was  ¹diseased in his feet.

And Asa slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father. And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his place.

And Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa the king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.

And he did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah and walked in the way of his father and in his sin by which he caused Israel to sin.

And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha struck him down in Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines, while Nadab and all Israel were laying siege to Gibbethon.

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

And as soon as he became king, he struck down all the house of Jeroboam; he left to Jeroboam not one who had breath, until he had destroyed them, according to the word of Jehovah, which He spoke through His servant Ahijah the Shilonite,

Because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he committed and by which he caused Israel to sin, because of his provocation by which he provoked Jehovah the God of Israel to anger.

And 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?

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

In the third year of Asa the king of Judah, Baasha the son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel in Tirzah for twenty-four years.

And he did what was evil in the sight of Jehovah and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin by which he caused Israel to sin.