I Kings 14-18

I Kings 14

¹At that time Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, became ill.

²And 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.

³And 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.

⁴So 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.

⁵And 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.

⁶Then 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.

⁷Go, 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,

⁸And 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.

⁹But 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.

¹⁰So 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.

¹¹Those 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.

¹²Up, 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.

¹³And 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.

¹⁴And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day;

¹⁵And 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.

¹⁶And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do.

¹⁷Then 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.

¹⁸And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet.

¹⁹Now 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.

²⁰And Jeroboam was king for twenty-two years, and was put to rest with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.

²¹And 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.

²²And Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and made him more angry than their fathers had done by their sins.

²³For they made high places and upright stones and wood pillars on every high hill and under every green tree;

²⁴And 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.

²⁵Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem;

²⁶And 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.

²⁷So 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.

²⁸And 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.

²⁹Now 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?

³⁰And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

³¹And 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.

I Kings 15

¹Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became king over Judah.

²For three years he was king in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

³And 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.

⁴But because of David, the Lord gave him a light in Jerusalem, making his sons king after him, so that Jerusalem might be safe;

⁵Because 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...

⁷Now 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.

⁸Then 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.

⁹In the twentieth year that Jeroboam was king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah.

¹⁰And he was king for forty-one years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.

¹¹Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father did.

¹²Those 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.

¹³And 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.

¹⁴The high places, however, were not taken away: but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

¹⁵He 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.

¹⁶Now there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

¹⁷And 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.

¹⁸Then 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,

¹⁹Let 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.

²⁰So 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.

²¹And Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and was living in Tirzah.

²²Then 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.

²³Now 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.

²⁴So 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.

²⁵Nadab, 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.

²⁶He 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.

²⁷And 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.

²⁸In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha put him to death, and became king in his place.

²⁹And 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;

³⁰Because of the sins which Jeroboam did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath.

³¹Now 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?

³²And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

³³In 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.

³⁴He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.

I Kings 16

¹And the word of the Lord came to Jehu, son of Hanani, protesting against Baasha and saying,

²Because I took you up out of the dust, and made you ruler over my people Israel; and you have gone in the ways of Jeroboam, and made my people Israel do evil, moving me to wrath by their sins;

³Truly, I will see that Baasha and all his family are completely brushed away; I will make your family like the family of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.

⁴Anyone of the family of Baasha who comes to death in the town, will become food for the dogs; and he to whom death comes in the open country, will be food for the birds of the air.

⁵Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

⁶And Baasha went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth at Tirzah; and Elah his son became king in his place.

⁷And the Lord sent his word against Baasha and his family by the mouth of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani, because of all the evil he did in the eyes of the Lord, moving him to wrath by the work of his hands, because he was like the family of Jeroboam, and because he put it to death.

⁸In the twenty-sixth year that Asa was king of Judah, Elah, the son of Baasha, became king of Israel in Tirzah, and he was king for two years.

⁹And his servant Zimri, captain of half his war-carriages, made secret designs against him: now he was in Tirzah, drinking hard in the house of Arza, controller of the king's house in Tirzah.

¹⁰And Zimri went in and made an attack on him and put him to death, in the twenty-seventh year that Asa was king of Judah, and made himself king in his place.

¹¹And straight away when he became king and took his place on the seat of the kingdom, he put to death all the family of Baasha: not one male child of his relations or his friends kept his life.

¹²So Zimri put to death all the family of Baasha, so that the word which the Lord said against him by the mouth of Jehu the prophet came about;

¹³Because of all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath by their foolish acts.

¹⁴Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

¹⁵In the twenty-seventh year of Asa, king of Judah, Zimri was king for seven days in Tirzah. Now the people were attacking Gibbethon in the land of the Philistines.

¹⁶And news came to the people in the tents that Zimri had made a secret design and had put the king to death: so all Israel made Omri, the captain of the army, king that day in the tents.

¹⁷Then Omri went up from Gibbethon, with all the army of Israel, and they made an attack on Tirzah, shutting in the town on every side.

¹⁸And when Zimri saw that the town was taken, he went into the inner room of the king's house, and burning the house over his head, came to his end,

¹⁹Because of his sin in doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, in going in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel do.

²⁰Now the rest of the acts of Zimri, and the secret design he made, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²¹Then there was a division among the people of Israel; half the people were for making Tibni, son of Ginath, king, and half were supporting Omri.

²²But the supporters of Omri overcame those who were on the side of Tibni, the son of Ginath; and death came to Tibni and to his brother Joram at that time: and Omri became king in the place of Tibni.

²³In the thirty-first year of Asa, king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel, and he was king for twelve years; for six years he was ruling in Tirzah.

²⁴He got the hill Samaria from Shemer for the price of two talents of silver, and he made a town there, building it on the hill and naming it Samaria, after Shemer the owner of the hill.

²⁵And Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord, even worse than all those before him,

²⁶Copying all the evil ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and all the sins he did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath by their foolish ways.

²⁷Now the rest of the acts which Omri did, and his great power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

²⁸So Omri went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in Samaria; and Ahab his son became king in his place.

²⁹In the thirty-eighth year that Asa was king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, became king over Israel; and Ahab was king in Samaria for twenty-two years.

³⁰And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the eyes of the Lord, even worse than all who went before him.

³¹And as if copying the evil ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, was a small thing for him, he took as his wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Zidon, and became a servant and worshipper of Baal.

³²And he put up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he had made in Samaria.

³³And Ahab made an image of Asherah and did more than all the kings of Israel before him to make the Lord, the God of Israel, angry.

³⁴In his days Hiel made Jericho; he put its base in position at the price of Abiram, his oldest son, and he put its doors in place at the price of his youngest son Segub; even as the Lord had said by Joshua, the son of Nun.

I Kings 17

¹And Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, By the living Lord, the God of Israel, whose servant I am, there will be no dew or rain in these years, but only at my word.

²Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

³Go from here in the direction of the east, and keep yourself in a secret place by the stream Cherith, east of Jordan.

⁴The water of the stream will be your drink, and by my orders the ravens will give you food there.

⁵So he went and did as the Lord said, living by the stream Cherith, east of Jordan.

⁶And the ravens took him bread in the morning and meat in the evening; and the water of the stream was his drink.

⁷Now after a time the stream became dry, because there was no rain in the land.

⁸Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

⁹Up! go now to Zarephath, in Zidon, and make your living-place there; I have given orders to a widow woman there to see that you have food.

¹⁰So he got up and went to Zarephath; and when he came to the door of the town, he saw a widow woman getting sticks together; and crying out to her he said, Will you give me a little water in a vessel for my drink?

¹¹And when she was going to get it, he said to her, And get me with it a small bit of bread.

¹²Then she said, By the life of the Lord your God, I have nothing but a little meal in my store, and a drop of oil in the bottle; and now I am getting two sticks together so that I may go in and make it ready for me and my son, so that we may have a meal before our death.

¹³And Elijah said to her, Have no fear; go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake of it and come and give it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.

¹⁴For this is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: The store of meal will not come to an end, and the bottle will never be without oil, till the day when the Lord sends rain on the earth.

¹⁵So she went and did as Elijah said; and she and he and her family had food for a long time.

¹⁶The store of meal did not come to an end, and the bottle was never without oil, as the Lord had said by the mouth of Elijah.

¹⁷Now after this, the son of the woman of the house became ill, so ill that there was no breath in him.

¹⁸And she said to Elijah, What have I to do with you, O man of God? have you come to put God in mind of my sin, and to put my son to death?

¹⁹And he said to her, Give your son to me. And lifting him out of her arms, he took him up to his room and put him down on his bed.

²⁰And crying to the Lord he said, O Lord my God, have you sent evil even on the widow whose guest I am, by causing her son's death?

²¹And stretching herself out on the child three times, he made his prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord my God, be pleased to let this child's life come back to him again.

²²And the Lord gave ear to the voice of Elijah, and the child's spirit came into him again, and he came back to life.

²³And Elijah took the child down from his room into the house and gave him to his mother and said to her, See, your son is living.

²⁴Then the woman said to Elijah, Now I am certain that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.

I Kings 18

¹Now after a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, Go and let Ahab see you, so that I may send rain on the earth.

²So Elijah went to let Ahab see him. Now there was no food to be had in Samaria.

³And Ahab sent for Obadiah, the controller of the king's house. (Now Obadiah had the fear of the Lord before him greatly;

⁴For when Jezebel was cutting off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them, and kept them secretly in a hole in the rock, fifty at a time, and gave them bread and water.)

⁵And Ahab said to Obadiah, Come, let us go through all the country, to all the fountains of water and all the rivers, and see if there is any grass to be had for the horses and the transport beasts, so that we may be able to keep some of the beasts from destruction.

⁶So they went through all the country, covering it between them; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another by himself.

⁷And while Obadiah was on his way, he came face to face with Elijah; and seeing who it was, he went down on his face and said, Is it you, my lord Elijah?

⁸And Elijah in answer said, It is I; now go and say to your lord, Elijah is here.

⁹And he said, What sin have I done, that you would give up your servant into the hand of Ahab, and be the cause of my death?

¹⁰By the life of the Lord your God, there is not a nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent in search of you; and when they said, He is not here; he made them take an oath that they had not seen you.

¹¹And now you say, Go, say to your lord, Elijah is here.

¹²And straight away, when I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will take you away, I have no idea where, so that when I come and give word to Ahab, and he sees you not, he will put me to death: though I, your servant, have been a worshipper of the Lord from my earliest years.

¹³Has my lord not had word of what I did when Jezebel was putting the Lord's prophets to death? how I kept a hundred of them in a secret hole in the rock, fifty at a time, and gave them bread and water?

¹⁴And now you say, Go and say to your Lord, Elijah is here; and he will put me to death.

¹⁵And Elijah said, By the life of the Lord of armies, whose servant I am, I will certainly let him see me today.

¹⁶So Obadiah went to Ahab and gave him the news; and Ahab went to see Elijah.

¹⁷And when he saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

¹⁸Then he said in answer, I have not been troubling Israel, but you and your family; because, turning away from the orders of the Lord, you have gone after the Baals.

¹⁹Now send, and get Israel together before me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal who get their food at Jezebel's table.

²⁰So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and got the prophets together at Mount Carmel.

²¹And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go on balancing between two opinions? if the Lord is God, then give worship to him; but if Baal, give worship to him. And the people said not a word in answer.

²²Then Elijah said to the people, I, even I, am the only living prophet of the Lord; but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men.

²³Now, let them give us two oxen; and let them take one for themselves, and have it cut up, and put it on the wood, but put no fire under it; I will get the other ox ready, and put it on the wood, and put no fire under it.

²⁴And do you make prayers to your god, and I will make a prayer to the Lord: and it will be clear that the one who gives an answer by fire is God. And all the people in answer said, It is well said.

²⁵Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Take one ox for yourselves and get it ready first, for there are more of you; and make your prayers to your god, but put no fire under.

²⁶So they took the ox which was given them, and made it ready, crying out to Baal from morning till the middle of the day, and saying, O Baal, give ear to us. But there was no voice and no answer. And they were jumping up and down before the altar they had made.

²⁷And in the middle of the day, Elijah made sport of them, saying, Give louder cries, for he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or he may have gone away for some purpose, or he may be on a journey, or by chance he is sleeping and has to be made awake.

²⁸So they gave loud cries, cutting themselves with knives and swords, as was their way, till the blood came streaming out all over them.

²⁹And from the middle of the day they went on with their prayers till the time of the offering; but there was no voice, or any answer, or any who gave attention to them.

³⁰Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me; and all the people came near. And he put up again the altar of the Lord which had been broken down.

³¹And Elijah took twelve stones, the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the Lord had said, Israel will be your name:

³²And with the stones he made an altar to the name of the Lord; and he made a deep drain all round the altar, great enough to take two measures of seed.

³³And he put the wood in order, and, cutting up the ox, put it on the wood. Then he said, Get four vessels full of water and put it on the burned offering and on the wood. And he said, Do it a second time, and they did it a second time;

³⁴And he said, Do it a third time, and they did it a third time.

³⁵And the water went all round the altar, till the drain was full.

³⁶Then at the time of the offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be seen this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things by your order.

³⁷Give me an answer, O Lord, give me an answer, so that this people may see that you are God, and that you have made their hearts come back again.

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord came down, burning up the offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and drinking up the water in the drain.

³⁹And when the people saw it, they all went down on their faces, and said, The Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God.

⁴⁰And Elijah said to them, Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them get away. So they took them, and Elijah made them go down to the stream Kishon, and put them to death there.

⁴¹Then Elijah said to Ahab, Up! take food and drink, for there is a sound of much rain.

⁴²So Ahab went up to have food and drink, while Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he went down on the earth, putting his face between his knees.

⁴³And he said to his servant, Go now, and take a look in the direction of the sea. And he went up, and after looking said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times; and he went seven times.

⁴⁴And the seventh time he said, I see a cloud coming up out of the sea, as small as a man's hand. Then he said, Go up and say to Ahab, Get your carriage ready and go down or the rain will keep you back.

⁴⁵And after a very little time, the heaven became black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab went in his carriage to Jezreel.

⁴⁶And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah; and he made himself strong, and went running before Ahab till they came to Jezreel.