1 Kings 13

The Man of God, the Altar, and the Old Prophet

1 Just as Jeroboam was standing by the altar in Bethel, burning incense, a man of God popped up from Judah, sent by the Lord.

2 He yelled out against the altar, speaking the word of the Lord: “Listen, Altar, Altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘Look, a kid named Josiah is going to be born into the house of David. On you, he is going to sacrifice the priests of the high places who are burning incense on you, and human bones are going to be burned on you!’”

3 And he gave a sign that same day, saying, “This is the proof that the Lord has spoken: ‘Look, the altar is going to crack open, and the ashes on it is going to spill out!’”

4 When King Jeroboam heard the word the man of God shouted against the altar in Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Grab him!” But the hand he stretched out against him shriveled up, and he could not pull it back.

5 The altar also cracked open, and the ashes spilled out from the altar, exactly according to the sign the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

6 Then the king told the man of God, “Listen, please beg the Lord your God for me, and pray for me so my hand can get right again.” So the man of God begged the Lord, and the king’s hand got straight again, like it was before.

7 The king told the man of God, “Come to my house and get some grub, and I will give you a gift.”

8 But the man of God told the king, “Even if you gave me half your crib, I am not rolling with you, and I am not eating bread or drinking water in this place.”

9 “Because the Lord commanded me by His word, saying, ‘You are not eating bread or drinking water there, and you are not going back the way you came.’”

10 So he left, taking a different route; he did not go back the way he came to Bethel.

11 Now, there was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came and told him everything the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told their pops what he had said to the king.

12 Their pops asked them, “Which way did he go,” And his sons showed him the road the man of God who came from Judah had taken.

13 Then he told his sons, “Saddle up my donkey for me.” So they saddled his donkey for him, and he mounted it.

14 He rode after 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?” He answered, “Yeah, I am.”

15 Then he told him, “Come home with me and get some grub.”

16 But he said, “I cannot go back with you, or eat bread or drink water with you in this place.”

17 “Because the Lord told me by His word: ‘You are not eating bread or drinking water there, and you are not going back the way you came.’”

18 The old prophet told him, “I am a prophet just like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house so he can eat bread and drink water.’” (But he was lying to him.)

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

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

21 And he yelled out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because you rebelled against the word of the Lord and did not keep the command the Lord your God gave you,’”

22 “’But you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place where He told you, “You are not eating bread or drinking water there”, your body is not going to make it to the burial place of your ancestors!’”

23 After he had eaten bread and drunk water, the old prophet saddled the donkey for him, for the man of God he had brought back.

24 As he was riding, a lion jumped him on the road and killed him. And his body was lying on the road, with the donkey standing next to it, and the lion standing next to the body.

25 Some dudes passing by saw the body lying on the road and the lion standing next to it, and they went and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

26 When the old prophet who had brought him back from the road heard about it, he said, “That is the man of God who rebelled against the word of the Lord! So the Lord gave him to the lion, and it tore him up and killed him, just like the Lord said to him.”

27 Then he told his sons, “Saddle up my donkey for me.” And they saddled it.

28 He went and found his body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing next to it. The lion had not eaten the body or torn up the donkey.

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

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

31 After he buried him, he told his sons, “When I pass away, bury me in the burial place where the man of God is buried; lay my bones next to his bones.”

32 “For the word he cried out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, and against all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria, will surely come true.”

33 Even after this, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil ways. He went right back to making priests for the high places from just any regular people. Whoever wanted to, he would make them a priest of the high places.

34 This whole thing became a sin for the house of Jeroboam, leading to its wipeout and destruction from the face of the earth.