The One Year Bible TLB (130 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
The wicked enjoy fellowship with others who are wicked; liars enjoy liars.
5
Mocking the poor is mocking the God who made them. He will punish those who rejoice at others’ misfortunes.
June 14When the people of Israel learned of Jeroboam’s return from Egypt, he was asked to come before an open meeting of all the people; and there he was made king of Israel. Only the tribe of Judah
*
continued under the kingship of the family of David.
21
When King Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he summoned his army—all the able-bodied men of Judah and Benjamin: 180,000 special troops—to force the rest of Israel to acknowledge him as their king.
22
But God sent this message to Shemaiah, the prophet:
23-24
“Tell Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and all the people of Judah and Benjamin that they must not fight against their brothers, the people of Israel. Tell them to disband and go home, for what has happened to Rehoboam is according to my wish.” So the army went home as the Lord had commanded.
25
Jeroboam now built the city of Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and it became his capital. Later he built Penuel.
26
Jeroboam thought, “Unless I’m careful, the people will want a descendant of David as their king.
27
When they go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the Temple, they will become friendly with King Rehoboam; then they will kill me and ask him to be their king instead.”
28
So on the advice of his counselors, the king had two golden calf idols made and told the people, “It’s too much trouble to go to Jerusalem to worship; from now on these will be your gods—they rescued you from your captivity in Egypt!”
29
One of these calf idols was placed in Bethel and the other in Dan.
30
This was of course a great sin, for the people worshiped them.
31
He also made shrines on the hills and ordained priests from the rank and file of the people—even those who were not from the priestly tribe of Levi.
32-33
Jeroboam also announced that the annual Tabernacle Festival would be held at Bethel on the first of November
*
(a date he decided upon himself), similar to the annual festival at Jerusalem; he himself offered sacrifices upon the altar to the calves at Bethel and burned incense to them. And it was there at Bethel that he ordained priests for the shrines on the hills.
13:
1
As Jeroboam approached the altar to burn incense to the golden calf idol, a prophet of the Lord from Judah walked up to him.
2
Then, at the Lord’s command, the prophet shouted, “O altar, the Lord says that a child named Josiah shall be born into the family line of David, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests from the shrines on the hills who come here to burn incense; and men’s bones shall be burned upon you.”
3
Then he gave this proof that his message was from the Lord: “This altar will split apart, and the ashes on it will spill to the ground.”
4
The king was very angry with the prophet for saying this. He shouted to his guards, “Arrest that man!” and shook his fist at him. Instantly the king’s arm became paralyzed in that position; he couldn’t pull it back again!
5
At the same moment a wide crack appeared in the altar and the ashes poured out, just as the prophet had said would happen. For this was the prophet’s proof that God had been speaking through him.
6
“Oh, please, please,” the king cried out to the prophet, “beg the Lord your God to restore my arm again.”
So he prayed to the Lord, and the king’s arm became normal again.
7
Then the king said to the prophet, “Come to the palace with me and rest awhile and have some food; and I’ll give you a reward because you healed my arm.”
8
But the prophet said to the king, “Even if you gave me half your palace, I wouldn’t go into it; nor would I eat or drink even water in this place!
9
For the Lord has given me strict orders not to eat anything or drink any water while I’m here, and not to return to Judah by the road I came on.”
10
So he went back another way.
11
As it happened, there was an old prophet living in Bethel, and his sons went home and told him what the prophet from Judah had done and what he had said to the king.
12
“Which way did he go?” the old prophet asked. So they told him.
13
“Quick, saddle the donkey,” the old man said. And when they had saddled the donkey for him,
14
he rode after the prophet and found him sitting under an oak tree.
“Are you the prophet who came from Judah?” he asked him.
“Yes,” he replied, “I am.”
15
Then the old man said to the prophet, “Come home with me and eat.”
16-17
“No,” he replied, “I can’t; for I am not allowed to eat anything or to drink any water at Bethel. The Lord strictly warned me against it; and he also told me not to return home by the same road I came on.”
18
But the old man said, “I am a prophet too, just as you are; and an angel gave me a message from the Lord. I am to take you home with me and give you food and water.”
But the old man was lying to him.
19
So they went back together, and the prophet ate some food and drank some water at the old man’s home.
20
Then, suddenly, while they were sitting at the table, a message from the Lord came to the old man,
21-22
and he shouted at the prophet from Judah, “The Lord says that because you have been disobedient to his clear command and have come here, and have eaten and drunk water in the place he told you not to, therefore your body shall not be buried in the grave of your fathers.”
23
After finishing the meal, the old man saddled the prophet’s donkey,
24-25
and the prophet started off again. But as he was traveling along, a lion came out and killed him. His body lay there on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. Those who came by and saw the body lying in the road and the lion standing quietly beside it, reported it in Bethel where the old prophet lived.
26
When he heard what had happened he exclaimed, “It is the prophet who disobeyed the Lord’s command; the Lord fulfilled his warning by causing the lion to kill him.”
27
Then he said to his sons, “Saddle my donkey!” And they did.
28
He found the prophet’s body lying in the road; and the donkey and lion were still standing there beside it, for the lion had not eaten the body nor attacked the donkey.
29
So the prophet laid the body upon the donkey and took it back to the city to mourn over it and bury it.
30
He laid the body in his own grave, exclaiming, “Alas, my brother!”
31
Afterwards he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the prophet is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones.
32
For the Lord told him to shout against the altar in Bethel, and his curse against the shrines in the cities of Samaria shall surely be fulfilled.”
33
Despite the prophet’s warning, Jeroboam did not turn away from his evil ways; instead, he made more priests than ever from the common people, to offer sacrifices to idols in the shrines on the hills. Anyone who wanted to could be a priest.
34
This was a great sin and resulted in the destruction of Jeroboam’s kingdom and the death of all of his family.
Upon arrival in Jerusalem he [Paul] tried to meet with the believers, but they were all afraid of him. They thought he was faking!
27
Then Barnabas brought him to the apostles and told them how Paul had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus, what the Lord had said to him, and all about his powerful preaching in the name of Jesus.
28
Then they accepted him, and after that he was constantly with the believers
29
and preached boldly in the name of the Lord. But then some Greek-speaking Jews with whom he had argued plotted to murder him.
30
However, when the other believers heard about his danger, they took him to Caesarea and then sent him to his home in Tarsus.
31
Meanwhile, the church had peace throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria, and grew in strength and numbers. The believers learned how to walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
32
Peter traveled from place to place to visit them,
*
and in his travels came to the believers in the town of Lydda.
33
There he met a man named Aeneas, paralyzed and bedridden for eight years.
34
Peter said to him, “Aeneas! Jesus Christ has healed you! Get up and make your bed.” And he was healed instantly.
35
Then the whole population of Lydda and Sharon turned to the Lord when they saw Aeneas walking around.
36
In the city of Joppa there was a woman named Dorcas (“Gazelle”), a believer who was always doing kind things for others, especially for the poor.
37
About this time she became ill and died. Her friends prepared her for burial and laid her in an upstairs room.
38
But when they learned that Peter was nearby at Lydda, they sent two men to beg him to return with them to Joppa.
39
This he did; as soon as he arrived, they took him upstairs where Dorcas lay. The room was filled with weeping widows who were showing one another the coats and other garments Dorcas had made for them.
40
But Peter asked them all to leave the room; then he knelt and prayed. Turning to the body he said, “Get up, Dorcas,”
*
and she opened her eyes! And when she saw Peter, she sat up!
41
He gave her his hand and helped her up and called in the believers and widows, presenting her to them.
42
The news raced through the town, and many believed in the Lord.
43
And Peter stayed a long time in Joppa, living with Simon, the tanner.
Lord, do you remember that time when my heart
*
was so filled with turmoil?
2-5
I couldn’t rest, I couldn’t sleep, thinking how I ought to build a permanent home for the Ark of the Lord,
*
a Temple for the Mighty One of Israel. Then I vowed that I would do it; I made a solemn promise to the Lord.
6
First the Ark was in Ephrathah,
*
then in the distant countryside of Jaar.
7
But now it will be settled in the Temple, in God’s permanent home here on earth. That is where we will go to worship him.
*
8
Arise, O Lord, and enter your Temple with the Ark, the symbol of your power.
9
We will clothe the priests in white, the symbol of all purity. May our nation shout for joy.
10
Do not reject your servant David—the king you chose for your people.
11
For you promised me that my son would sit on my throne and succeed me. And surely you will never go back on a promise!
12
You also promised that if my descendants will obey the terms of your contract with me, then the dynasty of David shall never end.
13
O Lord, you have chosen Jerusalem
*
as your home:
14
“This is my permanent home where I shall live,” you said, “for I have always wanted it this way.
15
I will make this city prosperous and satisfy her poor with food.
16
I will clothe her priests with salvation; her saints shall shout for joy.
17
David’s power shall grow, for I have decreed for him a mighty Son.
*
18
I’ll clothe his enemies with shame, but he shall be a glorious King.”
An old man’s grandchildren are his crowning glory. A child’s glory is his father.
June 15Jeroboam’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.
*
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
*
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.
*
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.
*
15
He made permanent exhibits in the Temple of the bronze shields his grandfather had dedicated,
*
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.
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,
*
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.
*
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.
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,
*
even life forevermore.
Truth from a rebel or lies from a king are both unexpected.
8
A bribe works like magic. Whoever uses it will prosper!
*