The One Year Bible TLB (133 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
It is safer to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool caught in his folly.
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If you repay evil for good, a curse is upon your home.
June 18When Ahab told Queen Jezebel what Elijah had done, and that he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal,
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she sent this message to Elijah: “You killed my prophets, and now I swear by the gods that I am going to kill you by this time tomorrow night.”
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So Elijah fled for his life; he went to Beersheba, a city of Judah, and left his servant there.
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Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day, and sat down under a broom bush and prayed that he might die.
“I’ve had enough,” he told the Lord. “Take away my life. I’ve got to die sometime, and it might as well be now.”
*
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Then he lay down and slept beneath the broom bush. But as he was sleeping, an Angel touched him and told him to get up and eat!
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He looked around and saw some bread baking on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.
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Then the Angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, for there is a long journey ahead of you.”
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So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God,
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where he lived in a cave.
But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
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He replied, “I have worked very hard for the Lord God of the heavens; but the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you and torn down your altars and killed your prophets, and only I am left; and now they are trying to kill me too.”
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“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain; it was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
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And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was the sound of a gentle whisper.
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When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his scarf and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
And a voice said, “Why are you here, Elijah?”
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He replied again, “I have been working very hard for the Lord God of the armies of heaven, but the people have broken their covenant and have torn down your altars; they have killed every one of your prophets except me; and now they are trying to kill me too.”
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Then the Lord told him, “Go back by the desert road to Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael to be king of Syria.
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Then anoint Jehu (son of Nimshi) to be king of Israel, and anoint Elisha (the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah) to replace you as my prophet.
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Anyone who escapes from Hazael shall be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu shall be killed by Elisha!
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And incidentally, there are 7,000 men in Israel who have never bowed to Baal nor kissed him!”
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So Elijah went and found Elisha who was plowing a field with eleven other teams ahead of him; he was at the end of the line with the last team. Elijah went over to him and threw his coat across his shoulders and walked away again.
*
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Elisha left the oxen standing there and ran after Elijah and said to him, “First let me go and say good-bye to my father and mother, and then I’ll go with you!”
Elijah replied, “Go on back! Why all the excitement?”
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Elisha then returned to his oxen, killed them, and used wood from the plow to build a fire to roast their flesh. He passed around the meat to the other plowmen, and they all had a great feast. Then he went with Elijah, as his assistant.
About that time King Herod moved against some of the believers
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and killed the apostle
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James (John’s brother).
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When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish leaders, he arrested Peter during the Passover celebration
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and imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of sixteen soldiers. Herod’s intention was to deliver Peter to the Jews for execution after the Passover.
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But earnest prayer was going up to God from the church for his safety all the time he was in prison.
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The night before he was to be executed, he was asleep, double-chained between two soldiers with others standing guard before the prison gate,
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when suddenly there was a light in the cell and an angel of the Lord stood beside Peter! The angel slapped him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists!
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Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your shoes.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me!” the angel ordered.
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So Peter left the cell, following the angel. But all the time he thought it was a dream or vision and didn’t believe it was really happening.
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They passed the first and second cell blocks and came to the iron gate to the street, and this opened to them of its own accord! So they passed through and walked along together for a block, and then the angel left him.
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Peter finally realized what had happened! “It’s really true!” he said to himself. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jews were hoping to do to me!”
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After a little thought he went to the home of Mary, mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for a prayer meeting.
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He knocked at the door in the gate, and a girl named Rhoda came to open it.
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When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she ran back inside to tell everyone that Peter was standing outside in the street.
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They didn’t believe her. “You’re out of your mind,” they said. When she insisted they decided, “It must be his angel. They must have killed him.”
*
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Meanwhile Peter continued knocking. When they finally went out and opened the door, their surprise knew no bounds.
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He motioned for them to quiet down and told them what had happened and how the Lord had brought him out of jail. “Tell James and the others what happened,” he said—and left for safer quarters.
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At dawn, the jail was in great commotion. What had happened to Peter?
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When Herod sent for him and found that he wasn’t there, he had the sixteen guards arrested, court-martialed and sentenced to death. Afterwards he left to live in Caesarea for a while.
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While he was in Caesarea, a delegation from Tyre and Sidon arrived to see him. He was highly displeased with the people of those two cities, but the delegates made friends with Blastus, the royal secretary, and asked for peace, for their cities were economically dependent upon trade with Herod’s country.
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An appointment with Herod was granted, and when the day arrived he put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them.
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At its conclusion the people gave him a great ovation, shouting, “It is the voice of a god and not of a man!”
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Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness so that he was filled with maggots and died—because he accepted the people’s worship instead of giving the glory to God.
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Give thanks to the God of gods, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise him who alone does mighty miracles, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise him who made the heavens, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise him who planted the water within the earth,
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for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise him who made the heavenly lights, for his loving-kindness continues forever:
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the sun to rule the day, for his loving-kindness continues forever;
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and the moon and stars at night, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise the God who smote the firstborn of Egypt, for his loving-kindness to Israel
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continues forever.
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He brought them out with mighty power and upraised fist to strike their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever.
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Praise the Lord who opened the Red Sea to make a path before them, for his loving-kindness continues forever,
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and led them safely through, for his loving-kindness continues forever—
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but drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever.
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Praise him who led his people through the wilderness, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Praise him who saved his people from the power of mighty kings, for his loving-kindness continues forever,
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and killed famous kings who were their enemies, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever:
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Sihon, king of Amorites—for God’s loving-kindness to Israel continues forever—
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and Og, king of Bashan—for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever.
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God gave the land of these kings to Israel as a gift forever, for his loving-kindness to Israel continues forever;
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yes, a permanent gift to his servant Israel, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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He remembered our utter weakness, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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And saved us from our foes, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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He gives food to every living thing, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
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Oh, give thanks to the God of heaven, for his loving-kindness continues forever.
It is hard to stop a quarrel once it starts,
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so don’t let it begin.
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The Lord despises those who say that bad is good and good is bad.
June 19King Ben-hadad of Syria now mobilized his army and, with thirty-two allied nations and their hordes of chariots and horses, besieged Samaria, the Israeli capital.
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He sent this message into the city to King Ahab of Israel: “Your silver and gold are mine, as are your prettiest wives and the best of your children!”
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“All right, my lord,” Ahab replied. “All that I have is yours!”
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Soon Ben-hadad’s messengers returned again with another message: “You must not only give me your silver, gold, wives, and children, but about this time tomorrow I will send my men to search your palace and the homes of your people, and they will take away whatever they like!”
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Then Ahab summoned his advisors. “Look what this man is doing,” he complained to them. “He is stirring up trouble despite the fact that I have already told him he could have my wives and children and silver and gold, just as he demanded.”
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“Don’t give him anything more,” the elders advised.
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So he told the messengers from Ben-hadad, “Tell my lord the king, ‘I will give you everything you asked for the first time, but your men may not search the palace and the homes of the people.’”
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So the messengers returned to Ben-hadad.
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Then the Syrian king sent this message to Ahab: “May the gods do more to me than I am going to do to you if I don’t turn Samaria into handfuls of dust!”
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The king of Israel retorted, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!”
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This reply of Ahab’s reached Ben-hadad and the other kings as they were drinking in their tents.
“Prepare to attack!” Ben-hadad commanded his officers.
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Then a prophet came to see King Ahab and gave him this message from the Lord: “Do you see all these enemy forces? I will deliver them all to you today. Then at last you will know that I am the Lord.”
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Ahab asked, “How will he do it?”
And the prophet replied, “The Lord says, ‘By the troops from the provinces.’”
“Shall we attack first?” Ahab asked.
“Yes,” the prophet answered.
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So he mustered the troops from the provinces, 232 of them, then the rest of his army of 7,000 men.
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About noontime, as Ben-hadad and the thirty-two allied kings were still drinking themselves drunk, the first of Ahab’s troops marched out of the city.
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As they approached, Ben-hadad’s scouts reported to him, “Some troops are coming!”
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“Take them alive,” Ben-hadad commanded, “whether they have come for truce or for war.”
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By now Ahab’s entire army had joined the attack.
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Each one killed a Syrian soldier, and suddenly the entire Syrian army panicked and fled. The Israelis chased them, but King Ben-hadad and a few others escaped on horses.
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However, the great bulk of the horses and chariots were captured, and most of the Syrian army was killed in a great slaughter.
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Then the prophet approached King Ahab and said, “Get ready for another attack by the king of Syria.”
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For after their defeat, Ben-hadad’s officers said to him, “The Israeli God is a god of the hills; that is why they won. But we can beat them easily on the plains.
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Only this time replace the kings with generals!
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Recruit another army like the one you lost; give us the same number of horses, chariots, and men, and we will fight against them in the plains; there’s not a shadow of a doubt that we will beat them.” So King Ben-hadad did as they suggested.
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The following year he called up the Syrian army and marched out against Israel again, this time at Aphek.
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Israel then mustered its army, set up supply lines, and moved into the battle; but the Israeli army looked like two little flocks of baby goats in comparison to the vast Syrian forces that filled the countryside!
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Then a prophet went to the king of Israel with this message from the Lord: “Because the Syrians have declared, ‘The Lord is a God of the hills and not of the plains,’ I will help you defeat this vast army, and you shall know that I am indeed the Lord.”
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The two armies camped opposite each other for seven days, and on the seventh day the battle began. And the Israelis killed 100,000 Syrian infantrymen that first day.
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The rest fled behind the walls of Aphek, but the wall fell on them and killed another 27,000. Ben-hadad fled into the city and hid in the inner room of one of the houses.
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“Sir,” his officers said to him, “we have heard that the kings of Israel are very merciful. Let us wear sackcloth and put ropes on our heads and go out to King Ahab to see if he will let you live.”
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So they went to the king of Israel and begged, “Your servant Ben-hadad pleads, ‘Let me live!’”
“Oh, is he still alive?” the king of Israel asked. “He is my brother!”
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The men were quick to grab this straw of hope and hurried to clinch the matter by exclaiming, “Yes, your brother Ben-hadad!”
“Go and get him,” the king of Israel told them. And when Ben-hadad arrived, he invited him up into his chariot!
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Ben-hadad told him, “I will restore the cities my father took from your father, and you may establish trading posts in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.”
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Meanwhile, the Lord instructed one of the prophets to say to another man, “Strike me with your sword!” But the man refused.
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Then the prophet told him, “Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, a lion shall kill you as soon as you leave me.” And sure enough, as he turned to go a lion attacked and killed him.
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Then the prophet turned to another man and said, “Strike me with your sword.” And he did, wounding him.
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The prophet waited for the king beside the road, having placed a bandage over his eyes to disguise himself.
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As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, “Sir, I was in the battle, and a man brought me a prisoner and said, ‘Keep this man; if he gets away, you must die, or else pay me $2,000!’
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But while I was busy doing something else, the prisoner disappeared!”
“Well, it’s your own fault,” the king replied. “You’ll have to pay.”
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Then the prophet yanked off the bandage from his eyes, and the king recognized him as one of the prophets.
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Then the prophet told him, “The Lord says, ‘Because you have spared the man I said must die, now you must die in his place, and your people shall perish instead of his.’”
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So the king of Israel went home to Samaria angry and sullen.
21:
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Naboth, a man from Jezreel, had a vineyard on the outskirts of the city near King Ahab’s palace.
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One day the king talked to him about selling him this land.
“I want it for a garden,” the king explained, “because it’s so convenient to the palace.” He offered cash or, if Naboth preferred, a piece of better land in trade.
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But Naboth replied, “Not on your life! That land has been in my family for generations.”
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So Ahab went back to the palace angry and sullen. He refused to eat and went to bed with his face to the wall!
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“What in the world is the matter?” his wife, Jezebel, asked him. “Why aren’t you eating? What has made you so upset and angry?”
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“I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or to trade it, and he refused!” Ahab told her.
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“Are you the king of Israel or not?” Jezebel demanded. “Get up and eat and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard!”
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So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and addressed them to the civic leaders of Jezreel, where Naboth lived.
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In her letter she commanded: “Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer.
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Then summon Naboth,
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and find two scoundrels who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and execute him.”
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The city fathers followed the queen’s instructions.
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They called the meeting and put Naboth on trial.
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Then two men who had no conscience accused him of cursing God and the king; and he was dragged outside the city and stoned to death.
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The city officials then sent word to Jezebel that Naboth was dead.
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When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, “You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn’t sell you? Well, you can have it now! He’s dead!”
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So Ahab went down to the vineyard to claim it.
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But the Lord said to Elijah,
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“Go to Samaria to meet King Ahab. He will be at Naboth’s vineyard, taking possession of it.
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Give him this message from me: ‘Isn’t killing Naboth bad enough? Must you rob him too? Because you have done this, dogs shall lick your blood outside the city just as they licked the blood of Naboth!’”
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“So my enemy has found me!” Ahab exclaimed to Elijah.
“Yes,” Elijah answered, “I have come to place God’s curse upon you because you have sold yourself to the devil.
*
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The Lord is going to bring great harm to you and sweep you away; he will not let a single one of your male descendants survive!
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He is going to destroy your family as he did the family of King Jeroboam and the family of King Baasha, for you have made him very angry and have led all of Israel into sin.
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The Lord has also told me that the dogs of Jezreel shall tear apart the body of your wife, Jezebel.
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The members of your family who die in the city shall be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the country shall be eaten by vultures.”
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No one else was so completely sold out to the devil as Ahab, for his wife, Jezebel, encouraged him to do every sort of evil.
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He was especially guilty because he worshiped idols just as the Amorites did—the people whom the Lord had chased out of the land to make room for the people of Israel.
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When Ahab heard these prophecies, he tore his clothing, put on rags, fasted, slept in sackcloth, and went about in deep humility.
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Then another message came to Elijah:
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“Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime; it will happen to his sons; I will destroy his descendants.”
God’s Good News was spreading rapidly and there were many new believers.
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Barnabas and Paul now visited Jerusalem and as soon as they had finished their business, returned to Antioch,
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taking John Mark with them.
13:
1
Among the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch were Barnabas and Symeon (also called “The Black Man”), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (the foster-brother of King Herod), and Paul.
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One day as these men were worshiping and fasting the Holy Spirit said, “Dedicate Barnabas and Paul for a special job I have for them.”
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So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them—and sent them on their way.
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Directed by the Holy Spirit they went to Seleucia and then sailed for Cyprus.
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There, in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogue and preached. (John Mark went with them as their assistant.)
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Afterwards they preached from town to town across the entire island until finally they reached Paphos where they met a Jewish sorcerer, a fake prophet named Bar-Jesus. He had attached himself to the governor, Sergius Paulus, a man of considerable insight and understanding. The governor invited Barnabas and Paul to visit him, for he wanted to hear their message from God.
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But the sorcerer, Elymas (his name in Greek), interfered and urged the governor to pay no attention to what Paul and Barnabas said, trying to keep him from trusting the Lord.
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Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, glared angrily at the sorcerer and said,
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“You son of the devil, full of every sort of trickery and villainy, enemy of all that is good, will you never end your opposition to the Lord?
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And now God has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be stricken awhile with blindness.”
Instantly mist and darkness fell upon him, and he began wandering around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him.
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When the governor saw what happened, he believed and was astonished at the power of God’s message.
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Now Paul and those with him left Paphos by ship for Turkey,
*
landing at the port town of Perga. There John Mark deserted them and returned to Jerusalem.
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But Barnabas and Paul went on to Antioch, a city in the province of Pisidia.
On the Sabbath they went into the synagogue for the services.
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After the usual readings from the Books of Moses and from the Prophets, those in charge of the service sent them this message: “Brothers, if you have any word of instruction for us come and give it!”