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14 Jeroboam’s son Abijah now became very sick. 2 Jeroboam told his wife, “Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you as the queen, and go to Ahijah the prophet at Shiloh—the man who told me that I would become king. 3 Take him a gift of ten loaves of bread, some fig bars, and a jar of honey, and ask him whether the boy will recover.”
4 So his wife went to Ahijah’s home at Shiloh. He was an old man now and could no longer see. 5 But the Lord told him that the queen, pretending to be someone else, would come to ask about her son, for he was very sick. And the Lord told him what to tell her.
6 So when Ahijah heard her at the door, he called out, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else?” Then he told her, “I have sad news for you. 7 Give your husband this message from the Lord God of Israel: ‘I promoted you from the ranks of the common people and made you king of Israel. 8 I ripped the kingdom away from the family of David and gave it to you, but you have not obeyed my commandments as my servant David did. His heart’s desire was always to obey me and to do whatever I wanted him to. 9 But you have done more evil than all the other kings before you; you have made other gods and have made me furious with your gold calves. And since you have refused to acknowledge me, 10 I will bring disaster upon your home and will destroy all of your sons—this boy who is sick and all those who are well.[a] I will sweep away your family as a stable hand shovels out manure. 11 I vow that those of your family who die in the city shall be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field shall be eaten by birds.’”
12 Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, “Go on home, and when you step into the city, the child will die. 13 All of Israel will mourn for him and bury him, but he is the only member of your family who will come to a quiet end. For this child is the only good thing that the Lord God of Israel sees in the entire family of Jeroboam. 14 And the Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam. 15 Then the Lord will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream; he will uproot the people of Israel from this good land of their fathers and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the Lord by worshiping idol-gods. 16 He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made all of Israel sin along with him.”
17 So Jeroboam’s wife returned to Tirzah; and the child died just as she walked through the door of her home. 18 And there was mourning for him throughout the land, just as the Lord had predicted through Ahijah.
19 The rest of Jeroboam’s activities—his wars and the other events of his reign—are recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Israel. 20 Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years, and when he died, his son Nadab took the throne.
21 Meanwhile, Rehoboam the son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he was on the throne seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which, among all the cities of Israel, the Lord had chosen to live in. (Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.) 22 During his reign the people of Judah, like those in Israel, did wrong and angered the Lord with their sin, for it was even worse than that of their ancestors. 23 They built shrines and obelisks and idols on every high hill and under every green tree. 24 There was homosexuality throughout the land, and the people of Judah became as depraved as the heathen nations which the Lord drove out to make room for his people.
25 In the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign, King Shishak of Egypt attacked and conquered Jerusalem. 26 He ransacked the Temple and the palace and stole everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made. 27 Afterwards Rehoboam made bronze shields as substitutes, and the palace guards used these instead. 28 Whenever the king went to the Temple, the guards paraded before him and then took the shields back to the guard chamber.
29 The other events in Rehoboam’s reign are written in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 30 There was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 31 When Rehoboam died—his mother was Naamah the Ammonitess—he was buried among his ancestors in Jerusalem, and his son Abijam took the throne.
15 1-2 Abijam began his three-year reign as king of Judah in Jerusalem during the eighteenth year of Jeroboam’s reign in Israel. (Abijam’s mother was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.) 3 He was as great a sinner as his father was, and his heart was not right with God, as King David’s was. 4 But despite Abijam’s sin, the Lord remembered David’s love[b] and did not end the line of David’s royal descendants. 5 For David had obeyed God during his entire life except for the affair concerning Uriah the Hittite. 6 During Abijam’s reign there was constant war between Israel and Judah.[c] 7 The rest of Abijam’s history is recorded in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. 8 When he died he was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Asa reigned in his place.
9 Asa became king of Judah, in Jerusalem, in the twentieth year of the reign of Jeroboam over Israel, 10 and reigned forty-one years. (His grandmother was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalom.) 11 He pleased the Lord like his ancestor King David. 12 He executed the male prostitutes and removed all the idols his father had made. 13 He deposed his grandmother Maacah as queen mother because she had made an idol—which he cut down and burned at Kidron Brook. 14 However, the shrines on the hills were not removed, for Asa did not realize that these were wrong.[d] 15 He made permanent exhibits in the Temple of the bronze shields his grandfather had dedicated,[e] along with the silver and gold vessels he himself had donated.
16 There was lifelong war between King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel. 17 King Baasha built the fortress city of Ramah in an attempt to cut off all trade with Jerusalem. 18 Then Asa took all the silver and gold left in the Temple treasury and all the treasures of the palace, and gave them to his officials to take to Damascus, to King Ben-hadad of Syria, with this message:
19 “Let us be allies just as our fathers were. I am sending you a present of gold and silver. Now break your alliance with King Baasha of Israel so that he will leave me alone.”
20 Ben-hadad agreed and sent his armies against some of the cities of Israel; and he destroyed Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah, all of Chinneroth, and all the cities in the land of Naphtali. 21 When Baasha received word of the attack, he discontinued building the city of Ramah and returned to Tirzah. 22 Then King Asa made a proclamation to all Judah, asking every able-bodied man to help demolish Ramah and haul away its stones and timbers. And King Asa used these materials to build the city of Geba in Benjamin and the city of Mizpah.
23 The rest of Asa’s biography—his conquests and deeds and the names of the cities he built—is found in The Annals of the Kings of Judah. In his old age his feet became diseased, 24 and when he died, he was buried in the royal cemetery in Jerusalem. Then his son Jehoshaphat became the new king of Judah.
10 In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer, Cornelius, a captain of an Italian regiment. 2 He was a godly man, deeply reverent, as was his entire household. He gave generously to charity and was a man of prayer. 3 While wide awake one afternoon he had a vision—it was about three o’clock—and in this vision he saw an angel of God coming toward him.
“Cornelius!” the angel said.
4 Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What do you want, sir?” he asked the angel.
And the angel replied, “Your prayers and charities have not gone unnoticed by God! 5-6 Now send some men to Joppa to find a man named Simon Peter, who is staying with Simon, the tanner, down by the shore, and ask him to come and visit you.”
7 As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a godly soldier, one of his personal bodyguard, 8 and told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.
9-10 The next day as they were nearing the city, Peter went up on the flat roof of his house to pray. It was noon and he was hungry, but while lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the sky open and a great canvas sheet,[a] suspended by its four corners, settle to the ground. 12 In the sheet were all sorts of animals, snakes, and birds forbidden to the Jews for food.[b]
13 Then a voice said to him, “Go kill and eat any of them you wish.”
14 “Never, Lord,” Peter declared, “I have never in all my life eaten such creatures, for they are forbidden by our Jewish laws.”
15 The voice spoke again, “Don’t contradict God! If he says something is kosher, then it is.”
16 The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was pulled up again to heaven.
17 Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? What was he supposed to do?
Just then the men sent by Cornelius had found the house and were standing outside at the gate, 18 inquiring whether this was the place where Simon Peter lived!
19 Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come to see you. 20 Go down and meet them and go with them. All is well, I have sent them.”
21 So Peter went down. “I’m the man you’re looking for,” he said. “Now what is it you want?”
22 Then they told him about Cornelius the Roman officer, a good and godly man, well thought of by the Jews, and how an angel had instructed him to send for Peter to come and tell him what God wanted him to do.
23 So Peter invited them in and lodged them overnight.
The next day he went with them, accompanied by some other believers from Joppa.
133 How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live in harmony! 2 For harmony is as precious as the fragrant anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head and ran down onto his beard and onto the border of his robe. 3 Harmony is as refreshing as the dew on Mount Hermon, on the mountains of Israel. And God has pronounced this eternal blessing on Jerusalem,[a] even life forevermore.
7 Truth from a rebel or lies from a king are both unexpected.
8 A bribe works like magic. Whoever uses it will prosper![a]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.