Bible in Basic English

1st KINGS , 8
Solomon's dedication prayer

8:1     Then Solomon sent for all the responsible men of Israel, and all the chiefs of the tribes, and the heads of families of the children of Israel, to come to him in Jerusalem to take the ark of the Lord's agreement up out of the town of David, which is Zion. 2 And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, the seventh month. 3 And all the responsible men of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. 4 They took up the ark of the Lord, and the Tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels which were in the Tent ; all these the priests and the Levites took up. 5 And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there, were with him before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered. 6 And the priests took the ark of the agreement of the Lord and put it in its place in the inner room of the house, in the most holy place, under the wings of the winged ones. 7 For their wings were outstretched over the place where the ark was, covering the ark and its rods. 8 The rods were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place, in front of the inmost room ; but they were not seen from outside : and there they are to this day. 9 There was nothing in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. 10 Now when the priests had come out of the holy place, the house of the Lord was full of the cloud, 11 So that the priests were not able to keep their places to do their work because of the cloud, for the house of the Lord was full of the glory of the Lord.
8:12     Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men ; 13 So I have made for you a living-place, a house in which you may be for ever present. 14 Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel ; and they were all on their feet together. 15 And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to David my father, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying, 16 From the day when I took my people Israel out of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name ; but I made selection of David to be king over my people Israel. 17 Now it was in the heart of David my father to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 18 But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name ; 19 But you yourself will not be the builder of my house ; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name. 20 And the Lord has made his word come true ; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word ; and I have made a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 21 In it I have made a place for the ark, in which is the agreement which the Lord made with our fathers, when he took them out of the land of Egypt.
8:22     Then Solomon took his place before the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present, and stretching out his hands to heaven, 23 Said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on the earth ; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts. 24 And you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father ; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day. 25 So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel before me, if only your children give attention to their ways, walking before me as you have done. 26 So now, O God of Israel, it is my prayer that you will make your word come true which you said to your servant David, my father.
8:27     But is it truly possible that God may be housed on earth ? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place ; how much less this house which I have made! 28 Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant, O Lord God, and to his prayer for grace ; give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant sends up to you this day ; 29 That your eyes may be open to this house night and day, to this place of which you have said, My name will be there ; hearing the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place. 30 Give ear to the prayers of your servant, and the prayers of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place ; give ear in heaven your living-place, and hearing, have mercy.
8:31     If a man does wrong to his neighbour, and has to take an oath, and comes before your altar to take his oath in this house: 32 Then let your ear be open in heaven, and be the judge of your servants, giving your decision against the wrongdoer, so that punishment for his sins may come on his head ; and, by your decision, keeping from evil him who has done no wrong.
33     When your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you ; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers to you and requesting your grace in this house: 34 Then give ear in heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again into the land which you gave to their fathers.
8:35     When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because of their sin against you ; if they make prayers with their faces turned to this place, honouring your name and turning away from their sin when you send trouble on them: 36 Then give ear in heaven, so that the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go ; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.
8:37     If there is no food in the land, or if there is disease, or if the fruits of the earth are damaged through heat or water, locust or worm ; if their towns are shut in by their attackers ; whatever trouble, whatever disease there may be: 38 Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house: 39 Give ear in heaven your living-place, acting in mercy ; and give to every man whose secret heart is open to you, the reward of all his ways ; for you, and you only, have knowledge of the hearts of all the children of men: 40 So that they may give you worship all the days of their life in the land which you gave to our fathers.
8:41     And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel; when he comes from a far country because of the glory of your name : 42 (For they will have news of your great name and your strong hand and your out-stretched arm;) when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house : 43 Give ear in heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and that they may see that this house which I have put up is truly named by your name.
8:44     If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayer to the Lord, turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have made for your name: 45 Give ear in heaven to their prayer and their cry for grace, and see right done to them.
8:46     If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away as prisoners into a strange land, far off or near ; 47 And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, and are turned again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil ; 48 And with all their heart and soul are turned again to you, in the land of those who took them prisoners, and make their prayer to you, turning their eyes to this land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I made for your name: 49 Then give ear to their prayer and to their cry in heaven your living-place, and see right done to them ; 50 Answering with forgiveness the people who have done wrong against you, and overlooking the evil which they have done against you ; let those who made them prisoners be moved with pity for them, and have pity on them ; 51 For they are your people and your heritage, which you took out of Egypt, out of the iron fireplace ; 52 Let your eyes be open to your servant's prayer for grace and to the prayer of your people Israel, hearing them when their cry comes to you. 53 For you made them separate from all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, as you said by Moses your servant, when you took our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.
8:54     Then Solomon, after making all these prayers and requests for grace to the Lord, got up from his knees before the altar of the Lord, where his hands had been stretched out in prayer to heaven ; 55 And, getting on his feet, he gave a blessing to all the men of Israel, saying with a loud voice, 56 Praise be to the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, as he gave them his word to do ; every word of all his oath, which he gave by the hand of Moses his servant, has come true. 57 Now may the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers ; let him never go away from us or give us up ; 58 Turning our hearts to himself, guiding us to go in all his ways, to keep his orders and his laws and his decisions, which he gave to our fathers. 59 And may these my words, the words of my prayer to the Lord, be before the Lord our God day and night, so that he may see right done to his servant and to his people Israel, day by day as we have need. 60 So that all the peoples of the earth may see that the Lord is God, and there is no other. 61 Then let your hearts be without sin before the Lord our God, walking in his laws and keeping his orders as at this day.
8:62     Now the king, and all Israel with him, were making offerings before the Lord. 63 And Solomon gave to the Lord for peace-offerings, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel kept the feast of the opening of the Lord's house. 64 The same day the king made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering there the burned offering and the meal offering and the fat of the peace-offerings ; for there was not room on the brass altar of the Lord for the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat of the peace-offerings.
8:65     So Solomon and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, (for the people had come together from the way into Hamath to the river of Egypt,) kept the feast at that time before the Lord our God, for two weeks, even fourteen days. 66 And on the eighth day he sent the people away, and, blessing the king, they went to their tents full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David his servant and to Israel his people

1st KINGS , 9
Use of forced labor

9:1     Now when Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all Solomon's desires, which he had in mind were effected ; 2 The Lord came to him again in a vision, as he had done at Gibeon ; 3 And the Lord said to him, Your prayers and your requests for grace have come to my ears : I have made holy this house which you have made, and I have put my name there for ever ; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times. 4 As for you, if you will go on your way before me, as David your father did, uprightly and with a true heart, doing what I have given you orders to do, keeping my laws and my decisions ; 5 Then I will make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel. 6 But if you are turned from my ways, you or your children, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods and give them worship: 7 Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them ; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes ; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder at it and make whistling sounds ; and they will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house? 9 And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord their God, who took their fathers out of the land of Egypt ; they took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants : that is why the Lord has sent all this evil on them.
9:10     Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, 11 (Hiram, king of Tyre, had given Solomon cedar-trees and cypress-trees and gold, as much as he had need of,) King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee. 12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13 And he said, What sort of towns are these which you have given me, my brother ? So they were named the land of Cabul, to this day. 14 And Hiram sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.
9:15     Now, this was the way of Solomon's system of forced work for the building of the Lord's house and of the king's house, and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Megiddo and Gezer. ... 16 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ... 17 ... and Solomon was the builder of Gezer and Beth-horon the lower, 18 And Baalath and Tamar in the waste land, in that land ; 19 And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. 20 As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel ; 21 Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day. 22 But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work ; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen.
9:23     These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work.
9:24     At that time Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her : then he made the Millo.
9:25     Three times in the year it was Solomon's way to give burned offerings and peace-offerings on the altar he had made to the Lord, causing his fire-offering to go up on the altar before the Lord.
9:26     And King Solomon made a sea-force of ships in Ezion-geber, by Eloth, on the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27 Hiram sent his servants, who were experienced seamen, in the sea-force with Solomon's men. 28 And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

1st KINGS , 10
Queen of Sheba's visit

10:1     Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions. 2 And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels weighted down with spices, and stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind. 3 And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions ; there was no secret which the king did not make clear to her. 4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had made, 5 And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.
10:6     And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true. 7 But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself ; and now I see that it was not half the story ; your wisdom and your wealth are much greater than they said. 8 Happy are your wives, happy are these your servants whose place is ever before you, hearing your words of wisdom. 9 May the Lord your God be praised, whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of the kingdom of Israel ; because the Lord's love for Israel is eternal, he has made you king, to be their judge in righteousness. 10 And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels : never again was such a wealth of spices seen as that which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.
10:11     And the sea-force of Hiram, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with much sandal-wood and jewels. 12 And from the sandal-wood the king made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody : never has such sandal-wood been seen to this day.
10:13     And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what he gave her freely from the impulse of his heart. So she went back to her country, she and her servants.
10:14     Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents ; 15 In addition to what came to him from the business of the traders, and from all the kings of the Arabians, and from the rulers of the country. 16 And Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it. 17 And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, with three pounds of gold in every cover : and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon. 18 Then the king made a great ivory seat, plated with the best gold. 19 There were six steps going up to it, and the top of it was round at the back, there were arms on the two sides of the seat, and two lions by the side of the arms ; 20 And twelve lions were placed on the one side and on the other side on the six steps : there was nothing like it in any kingdom. 21 And all King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold ; not one was of silver, for no one gave a thought to silver in the days of King Solomon. 22 For the king had Tarshish-ships at sea with the ships of Hiram ; once every three years the Tarshish-ships came with gold and silver and ivory and monkeys and peacocks.
10:23     And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom. 24 And from all over the earth they came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put in his heart. 25 And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses, and beasts of transport, regularly year by year.
10:26     And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen ; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem. 27 And the king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number. 28 And Solomon's horses came from Egypt and from Kue; the king's traders got them at a price from Kue. 29 A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty ; they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

1st KINGS , 11
Solomon's apostasy

11:1     Now a number of strange women were loved by Solomon, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites : 2 The nations of which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You are not to take wives from them and they are not to take wives from you ; or they will certainly make you go after their gods : to these Solomon was united in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives, daughters of kings, and three hundred other wives ; and through his wives his heart was turned away. 4 For it came about that when Solomon was old, his heart was turned away to other gods by his wives ; and his heart was no longer true to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom, the disgusting god of the Ammonites. 6 And Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not walking in the Lord's ways with all his heart as David his father did. 7 Then Solomon put up a high place for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, in the mountain before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the disgusting god worshipped by the children of Ammon. 8 And so he did for all his strange wives, who made offerings with burning of perfumes to their gods.
11:9     And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision ; 10 And had given him orders about this very thing, that he was not to go after other gods ; but he did not keep the orders of the Lord. 11 So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you have done this, and have not kept my agreement and my laws, which I gave you, I will take the kingdom away from you by force and will give it to your servant. 12 I will not do it in your life-time, because of your father David, but I will take it from your son. 13 Still I will not take all the kingdom from him ; but I will give one tribe to your son, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town of my selection.
11:14     So the Lord sent Hadad the Edomite to make trouble for Solomon : he was of the king's seed in Edom. 15 And when David had sent destruction on Edom, and Joab, the captain of the army, had gone to put the dead into the earth, and had put to death every male in Edom ; 16 (For Joab and all Israel were there six months till every male in Edom had been cut off ;) 17 Hadad, being still a young boy, went in flight to Egypt, with certain Edomites, servants of his father ; 18 And they went on from Midian and came to Paran ; and, taking men from Paran with them, they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who gave him a house and gave orders for his food and gave him land. 19 Now Hadad was very pleasing to Pharaoh, so that he gave him the sister of his wife, Tahpenes the queen, for his wife. 20 And the sister of Tahpenes had a son by him, Genubath, whom Tahpenes took care of in Pharaoh's house ; and Genubath was living in Pharaoh's house among Pharaoh's sons. 21 Now when Hadad had news in Egypt that David had been put to rest with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, Send me back to my country. 22 But Pharaoh said to him, What have you been short of while you have been with me, that you are desiring to go back to your country ? And he said, Nothing ; but even so, send me back.
11:23     And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah: 24 He got some men together and made himself captain of a band of outlaws ; and went to Damascus and became king there. 25 He was a trouble to Israel all through the days of Solomon. And this is the damage Hadad did : he was cruel to Israel while he was ruler over Edom.
11:26     And there was Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother was Zeruah, a widow ; and his hand was lifted up against the king. 27 The way in which his hand came to be lifted up against the king was this : Solomon was building the Millo and making good the damaged parts of the town of his father David ; 28 And Jeroboam was an able and responsible man ; and Solomon saw that he was a good worker and made him overseer of all the work given to the sons of Joseph. 29 Now at that time, when Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite came across him on the road ; now Ahijah had put on a new robe ; and the two of them were by themselves in the open country. 30 And Ahijah took his new robe in his hands, parting it violently into twelve. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take ten of the parts, for this is what the Lord has said : See, I will take the kingdom away from Solomon by force, and will give ten tribes to you ; 32 (But one tribe will be his, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town which, out of all the tribes of Israel, I have made mine,) 33 Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites ; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did. 34 But I will not take the kingdom from him ; I will let him be king all the days of his life, because of David my servant, in whom I took delight because he kept my orders and my laws. 35 But I will take the kingdom from his son, and give it to you. 36 And one tribe I will give to his son, so that David my servant may have a light for ever burning before me in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine to put my name there. 37 And you I will take, and you will be king over Israel, ruling over whatever is the desire of your soul. 38 And if you give attention to the orders I give you, walking in my ways and doing what is right in my eyes and keeping my laws and my orders as David my servant did ; then I will be with you, building up for you a safe house, as I did for David, and I will give Israel to you. 39 (So that I may send trouble for this on the seed of David, but not for ever.) 40 And Solomon was looking for a chance to put Jeroboam to death ; but he went in flight to Egypt, to Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.
11:41     Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all he did, and his wisdom, are they not recorded in the book of the acts of Solomon ? 42 And the time Solomon was king in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43 And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father :1 and Solomon went to rest with his fathers and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.
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   1 Some put 12.2 here.

1st KINGS , 12
Israel rebels

12:1     And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king, 2 And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim ; 3 And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said, 4 Your father put a hard yoke on us : if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants. 5 And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.
12:6     Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people? 7 And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today, caring for them and giving them a gentle answer, then they will be your servants for ever. 8 But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, and went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him: 9 And said to them, What is your opinion ? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us? 10 And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us ; will you make it less ? say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body ; 11 If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder : my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.
12:12     So all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come back to me the third day. 13 And the king gave them a rough answer, giving no attention to the suggestion of the old men ; 14 But giving them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder ; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes. 15 So the king did not give ear to the people ; and this came about by the purpose of the Lord, so that what he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, might be effected.
12:16     And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David ? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse ? to your tents, O Israel ; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents. 17 (But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.) 18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work ; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day. 20 Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel : not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah. 21 When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. 22 But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying, 23 Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the men of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people: 24 The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers, the children of Israel ; go back, every man to his house, because this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the word of the Lord, and went back, as the Lord had said.
12:25     Then Jeroboam made the town of Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim a strong place, and was living there ; and from there he went out and did the same to Penuel. 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will go back to the family of David: 27 If the people go up to make offerings in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their heart will be turned again to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah ; and they will put me to death and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah. 28 So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold ; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough ; see ! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt. 29 And he put one in Beth-el and the other in Dan. 30 And this became a sin in Israel ; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan. 31 And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people. 32 And Jeroboam gave orders for a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar. And in the same way, in Beth-el, he gave offerings to the oxen which he had made, placing in Beth-el the priests of the high places he had made. 33 He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure ; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

1st KINGS , 13
Jeroboam warned

13:1     Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings. 2 And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you. 3 The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given : See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned. 4 Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back. 5 And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned ; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. 6 Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before. 7 And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward. 8 But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place ; 9 For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came. 10 So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.
13:11     Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el ; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king. 12 Then 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. 13 So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it, 14 And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah ? And he said, I am. 15 Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal. 16 But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house ; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place ; 17 For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came. 18 Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you ; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him. 19 So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.
13:20     But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back ; 21 And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord, 22 But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water ; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers. 23 Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back. 24 And he went on his way ; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death ; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body. 25 And some men, going by, saw the body stretched out in the road with the lion by its side ; and they came and gave news of it in the town where the old prophet was living.
13:26     Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord ; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said. 27 And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so. 28 And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side : the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass. 29 Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back ; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping. 30 And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother! 31 And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones. 32 For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.
13:33     After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people ; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places. 34 And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.

1st KINGS , 14
Jeroboam condemned

14:1     At that time Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, became ill. 2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Now come, put on different clothing so that you may not seem to be the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh ; see, Ahijah is there, the prophet who said I would be king over this people. 3 And take with you ten cakes of bread and dry cakes and a pot of honey, and go to him: he will give you word of what is to become of the child.
14:4     So Jeroboam's wife did so, and got up and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah was unable to see, because he was very old. 5 And the Lord had said to Ahijah, The wife of Jeroboam is coming to get news from you about her son, who is ill ; give her such and such an answer ; for she will make herself seem to be another woman. 6 Then Ahijah, hearing the sound of her footsteps coming in at the door, said, Come in, O wife of Jeroboam ; why do you make yourself seem like another ? for I am sent to you with bitter news. 7 Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel : Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel, 8 And took the kingdom away by force from the seed of David and gave it to you, you have not been like my servant David, who kept my orders, and was true to me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. 9 But you have done evil more than any before you, and have made for yourself other gods, and images of metal, moving me to wrath, and turning your back on me. 10 So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel ; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone. 11 Those of the family of Jeroboam who come to death in the town, will become food for the dogs ; and those on whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air ; for the Lord has said it. 12 Up, then ! go back to your house ; and in the hour when your feet go into the town, the death of the child will take place. 13 And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth ; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good. 14 And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day ; 15 And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water ; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River ; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath. 16 And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do.
14:17     Then Jeroboam's wife got up and went away and came to Tirzah ; and when she came to the doorway of the house, death came to the child. 18 And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he became king, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel. 20 And Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years, and was put to rest with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.
14:21     And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was king in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there ; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. 22 And Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and made him more angry than their fathers had done by their sins. 23 For they made high places and upright stones and wood pillars on every high hill and under every green tree ; 24 And more than this, there were those in the land who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, doing the same disgusting crimes as the nations which the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel.
14:25     Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem ; 26 And took away all the stored wealth from the house of the Lord, and from the king's house, and all the gold body-covers which Solomon had made. 27 So in their place King Rehoboam had other body-covers made of brass, and gave them into the care of the captains of the armed men who were stationed at the door of the king's house. 28 And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room.
14:29     Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah? 30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. 31 And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth with his fathers in the town of David ; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. And Abijam his son became king in his place.

1st KINGS , 15
Reigns of Ajam and Asa

15:1     Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah. 2 For three years he was king in Jerusalem : and his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. 3 And he did the same sins which his father had done before him : his heart was not completely true to the Lord his God, like the heart of David his father. 4 But because of David, the Lord gave him a light in Jerusalem, making his sons king after him, so that Jerusalem might be safe ; 5 Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and never in all his life went against his orders, but only in the question of Uriah the Hittite. 6 Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. 7 The rest of the acts of Abijam, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah ? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. 8 Then Abijam went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David : and Asa his son became king in his place.
15:9     In the twentieth year that Jeroboam was king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah. 10 And he was king for forty-one years in Jerusalem ; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom. 11 Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father did. 12 Those used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods he sent out of the country, and he took away all the images which his fathers had made. 13 And he would not let Maacah his mother be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah ; and Asa had the image cut down and burned by the stream Kidron. 14 The high places, however, were not taken away : but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life. 15 He took into the house of the Lord all the things which his father had made holy, and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.
15:16     Now there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days. 17 And Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah, so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah. 18 Then Asa took all the silver and gold which was still stored in the Lord's house, and in the king's house, and sent them, in the care of his servants, to Ben-hadad, son of Tabrimmon, son of Rezon, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying, 19 Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father : see, I have sent you an offering of silver and gold ; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me. 20 So Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth as far as all the land of Naphtali. 21 And Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and was living in Tirzah. 22 Then King Asa got all Judah together, making every man come ; and they took away the stones and the wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and King Asa made use of them for building Geba in the land of Benjamin, and Mizpah. 23 Now the rest of the acts of Asa, and his power, and all he did, and the towns of which he was the builder, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Judah ? But when he was old he had a disease of the feet. 24 So Asa went to rest with his fathers and was put into the earth in the town of David his father : and Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place.
15:25     Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in the second year that Asa was king of Judah ; and he was king of Israel for two years. 26 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of his father, and the sin which he did and made Israel do.
15:27     And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the family of Issachar, made a secret design against him, attacking him at Gibbethon, a town of the Philistines ; for Nadab and the armies of Israel were making war on Gibbethon. 28 In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha put him to death, and became king in his place. 29 And straight away when he became king, he sent destruction on all the offspring of Jeroboam ; there was not one living person of all the family of Jeroboam whom he did not put to death, so the word of the Lord, which he said by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite, came about ; 30 Because of the sins which Jeroboam did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath.
15:31     Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel ? 32 And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.
15:33     In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, became king over all Israel in Tirzah, and was king for twenty-four years. 34 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.

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