1 Kings 13:11-32

Modern English Version

¹¹ Now there lived an old prophet in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king. ¹² Their father said to them, “What way did he go?” For his sons had seen the way the man of God who came from Judah had gone. ¹³ He said to his sons, “Saddle my donkey.” So they saddled the donkey for him, and he rode on it. ¹⁴ He went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak, 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 home with me and eat bread.”

¹⁶ He said, “I may not return with you or go in with you, nor will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place, ¹⁷ for I was commanded by the word of the Lord: You shall eat no bread and drink no water there nor return by the way you came.”

¹⁸ He said to him, “I am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” But he had lied to him. ¹⁹ So he went back with him to his house and ate bread and drank water.

²⁰ Then as they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who brought him back, ²¹ and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the Lord: Since you have disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you, ²² but instead came back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which the Lord told you to eat no bread and drink no water, your carcass will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers!”

²³ After he had eaten bread and had drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. ²⁴ As he was going, a lion met him on the way and killed him, and his body was thrown in the road, and both the donkey and lion stood by it. ²⁵ Some men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road with the lion standing by the body, and they came and told the story in the city where the old prophet lived.

²⁶ When the prophet who brought him back from the way heard about it, he said, “It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord, and thus the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn and slain him, according to the word of the Lord that He spoke to him.”

²⁷ He said to his sons, “Saddle my donkey,” and they saddled it. ²⁸ He then went and found his body thrown in the road, and the donkey and the lion were still standing by the body. The lion had not eaten the body nor attacked the donkey. ²⁹ The prophet picked up the body of the man of God and laid it on his donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came to the city to mourn and to bury him. ³⁰ He laid his body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

³¹ And after he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I am dead, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. ³² For the saying that he cried out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.”