1 Corinthians 1:1-17; 1 Kings 12; 1 Kings 13; Joel 1

1 Corinthians 1:1-17

1 Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and our brother Sosthenes:

2 To God's church at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus and called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord-theirs and ours.

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4 I always thank my God for you because of God's grace given to you in Christ Jesus,

5 that by Him you were made rich in everything-in all speaking and all knowledge-

6 as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you,

7 so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

8 He will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9 God is faithful; by Him you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

10 Now I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, and that you be united with the same understanding and the same conviction.

11 For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by members of Chloe's household, that there are quarrels among you.

12 What I am saying is this: each of you says, "I'm with Paul," or "I'm with Apollos," or "I'm with Cephas," or "I'm with Christ."

13 Is Christ divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul's name?

14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,

15 so that no one can say you had been baptized in my name.

16 I did, in fact, baptize the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't know if I baptized anyone else.

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-not with clever words, so that the cross of Christ will not be emptied [of its effect].

1 Kings 12

1 Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.

2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard [about it], for he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon's presence, Jeroboam stayed in Egypt.

3 They summoned him, and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam:

4 "Your father made our yoke harsh. You, therefore, lighten your father's harsh service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you."

5 Rehoboam replied, "Go home for three days and then return to me." So the people left.

6 Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, "How do you advise me to respond to these people?"

7 They replied, "Today if you will be a servant to these people and serve them, and if you respond to them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever."

8 But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and served him.

9 He asked them, "What message do you advise that we send back to these people who said to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?"

10 Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, "This is what you should say to these people who said to you, 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!' This is what you should tell them: 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins!

11 Although my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.' "

12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had ordered: "Return to me on the third day."

13 Then the king answered the people harshly. He rejected the advice the elders had given him

14 and spoke to them according to the young men's advice: "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips."

15 The king did not listen to the people, because the turn of events came from the Lord to carry out His word, which the Lord had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

16 When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him: What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Israel, return to your tents; David, now look after your own house! So Israel went to their tents,

17 but Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites living in the cities of Judah.

18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam managed to get into the chariot and flee to Jerusalem.

19 Israel is in rebellion against the house of David until today.

20 When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No one followed the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.

21 When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mobilized 180,000 choice warriors from the entire house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.

22 But a revelation from God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:

23 "Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,

24 'This is what the Lord says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you must return home, for I have done this.' " So they listened to what the Lord said and went back as He had told them.

25 Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built Penuel.

26 Jeroboam said to himself, "[The way things are going] now, the kingdom might return to the house of David.

27 If these people regularly go to offer sacrifices in the Lord's temple in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will return to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will murder me and go back to the king of Judah."

28 So the king sought advice. Then he made two gold calves, and he said to the people, "Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt."

29 He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan.

30 This led to sin; the people walked [in procession] before one of the calves all the way to Dan.

31 Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and set up priests from every class of people who were not Levites.

32 Jeroboam made a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival in Judah. He offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up. He also stationed in Bethel the priests for the high places he had set up.

33 He offered sacrifices on the altar he had set up in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month he had decided on his own. He made a festival for the Israelites, offered sacrifices on the altar, and burned incense.

1 Kings 13

1 A man of God came from Judah to Bethel by a revelation from the Lord while Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense.

2 The man of God cried out against the altar by a revelation from the Lord: "Altar, altar, this is what the Lord says, 'A son will be born to the house of David, named Josiah, and he will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who are burning incense on you. Human bones will be burned on you.' "

3 He gave a sign that day. He said, "This is the sign that the Lord has spoken: 'The altar will now be ripped apart, and the ashes that are on it will be spilled out.' "

4 When the king heard the word that the man of God had cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar and said, "Arrest him!" But the hand he stretched out against him withered, and he could not pull it back to himself.

5 The altar was ripped apart, and the ashes spilled off the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

6 Then the king responded to the man of God, "Please plead for the favor of the Lord your God and pray for me so that my hand may be restored to me." So the man of God pleaded for the favor of the Lord, and the king's hand was restored to him and became as it had been at first.

7 Then the king declared to the man of God, "Come home with me, refresh yourself, and I'll give you a reward."

8 But the man of God replied, "If you were to give me half your house, I still wouldn't go with you, and I wouldn't eat bread or drink water in this place,

9 for this is what I was commanded by the word of the Lord: 'You must not eat bread or drink water or go back the way you came.' "

10 So he went another way; he did not go back by the way he had come to Bethel.

11 Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

12 Then their father said to them, "Which way did he go?" His sons had seen the way taken by the man of God who had come from Judah.

13 Then he said to his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me." So they saddled the donkey for him, and he got on it.

14 He followed the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, "Are you the man of God who came from Judah?" "I am," he said.

15 Then he said to him, "Come home with me and eat bread."

16 But he answered, "I cannot go back with you, eat bread, or drink water with you in this place,

17 for a message came to me by the word of the Lord: 'You must not eat bread or drink water there or go back by the way you came.' "

18 He said to him, "I am also a prophet like you. An angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord: 'Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.' " The old prophet deceived him,

19 and the man of God went back with him, ate bread in his house, and drank water.

20 While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back,

21 and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, "This is what the Lord says: 'Because you rebelled against the command of the Lord and did not keep the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you,

22 but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place that He said to you: Do not eat bread and do not drink water, your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.' "

23 So after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet he had brought back.

24 When he left, a lion met him along the way and killed him. His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.

25 There were men passing by who saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and spoke [about it] in the city where the old prophet lived.

26 When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard [about it], he said, "He is the man of God who disobeyed the command of the Lord. The Lord has given him to the lion, and it has mauled him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord that He spoke to him."

27 Then the old prophet instructed his sons, "Saddle the donkey for me." They saddled it,

28 and he went and found the corpse of the man of God thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse or mauled the donkey.

29 So the prophet lifted the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came into the city to mourn and to bury him.

30 Then he laid the corpse in his own grave, and they mourned over him: "Oh, my brother!"

31 After he had buried him, he said to his sons, "When I die, you must bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones,

32 for the word that he cried out by a revelation from the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Samaria is certain to happen."

33 After all this Jeroboam did not repent of his evil way but again set up priests from every class of people for the high places. Whoever so desired it, he ordained, and they became priests of the high places.

34 For the house of Jeroboam, this was the sin that caused it to be wiped out and annihilated from the face of the earth.

Joel 1

1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel:

2 Hear this, you elders; listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?

3 Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the next generation.

4 What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you wine drinkers, because of the sweet wine, for it has been taken from your mouth.

6 For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has devastated My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It has stripped off its bark and thrown it away; its branches have turned white.

8 Grieve like a young woman dressed in sackcloth, [mourning] for the husband of her youth.

9 Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, who are ministers of the Lord, mourn.

10 The fields are destroyed; the land grieves; indeed, the grain is destroyed; the new wine is dried up; and the olive oil fails.

11 Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple- all the trees of the orchard-have withered. Indeed, human joy has dried up.

13 Dress [in sackcloth] and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Announce a sacred fast; proclaim an assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land at the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

15 Woe because of that day! For the Day of the Lord is near and will come as devastation from the Almighty.

16 Hasn't the food been cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?

17 The seeds lie shriveled in their casings. The storehouses are in ruin, and the granaries are broken down, because the grain has withered away.

18 How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion since they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

19 I call to You, Lord, for fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have devoured all the trees of the countryside.

20 Even the wild animals cry out to You, for the river beds are dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.