Now it happened as they were sitting at the table, that the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back. And he cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which the LORD said to you, “You shall not eat bread nor drink water”; your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers (ancestors).’ ” After the prophet of the house had eaten bread and after he had drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. Now when he had gone, a lion met him by the road and killed him, and his body was thrown in the road, with the donkey standing beside it; the lion was also standing beside the body. And there were men passing by, and they saw the body thrown in the road, and the lion standing beside the body. So they came and told about it in the city [of Bethel] where the old prophet lived.
When the prophet who had brought him back from the road heard about it, he said, “It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, in accordance with the word of the LORD which He spoke to him.” And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it. And he went and found the body thrown on the road, and the donkey and the lion standing beside the body; the lion [miraculously] had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. Then the prophet picked up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back, and he came into the city (Bethel) of the old prophet to mourn and to bury him. And he laid the body in his own grave, and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!” Then 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. For the words which he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria shall certainly come to pass.”
After this event, Jeroboam [still] did not turn from his evil way, but again made priests for the high places from among all the people. He ordained anyone who was willing, so that there would be priests for the high places. And this thing (idol worship) became the sin of the house of Jeroboam to blot it out and eliminate it from the face of the earth.
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