1 CORINTHIANS

1 Corinthians 1From Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from Sosthenes, who is also a follower.
²To God's church in Corinth. Christ Jesus chose you to be his very own people, and you worship in his name, as we and all others do who call him Lord.
³My prayer is that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace!
⁴I never stop thanking my God for being kind enough to give you Christ Jesus, ⁵who helps you speak and understand so well. ⁶Now you are certain that everything we told you about our Lord Christ Jesus is true. ⁷You are not missing out on any blessings, as you wait for him to return. ⁸And until the day Christ does return, he will keep you completely innocent. ⁹God can be trusted, and he chose you to be partners with his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Taking Sides

¹⁰My dear friends, as a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ, I beg you to get along with each other. Don't take sides. Always try to agree in what you think. ¹¹Several people from Chloe's family have already reported to me that you keep arguing with each other. ¹²They have said that some of you claim to follow me, while others claim to follow Apollos or Peter or Christ.
¹³Has Christ been divided up? Was I nailed to a cross for you? Were you baptized in my name? ¹⁴I thank God that I didn't baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. ¹⁵Not one of you can say that you were baptized in my name. ¹⁶I did baptize the family of Stephanas, but I don't remember if I baptized anyone else. ¹⁷Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to tell the good news without using big words that would make the cross of Christ lose its power.

1 Kings 12^32-33He also decided to start a new festival for the Israelites on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, just like the one in Judah. On that day, Jeroboam went to Bethel and offered sacrifices on the altar to the gold calf he had put there. Then he assigned the priests their duties.

A Prophet Condemns the Altar at Bethel

1 Kings 13^1-2One day, Jeroboam was standing at the altar in Bethel, ready to make an offering. Suddenly one of God's prophets arrived from Judah and shouted:

The LORD sent me with a message about this altar. A child named Josiah will be born into David's family. He will sacrifice on this altar the priests who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on it.

³You will know that the LORD has said these things when the altar splits in half, and the ashes on it fall to the ground.

⁴Jeroboam pointed at the prophet and shouted, "Grab him!" But right away, Jeroboam's hand became stiff, and he could not move it. ⁵The altar split in half, and the ashes fell to the ground, just as the prophet had warned.
⁶"Please pray to the LORD your God and ask him to heal my hand," Jeroboam begged.
The prophet prayed, and Jeroboam's hand was healed.
⁷"Come home with me and eat something," Jeroboam said. "I want to give you a gift for what you have done."
⁸"No, I wouldn't go with you, even if you offered me half of your kingdom. I won't eat or drink here either. ⁹The LORD said I can't eat or drink anything and that I can't go home the same way I came." ¹⁰Then he started home down a different road.

An Old Prophet from Bethel

¹¹At that time an old prophet lived in Bethel, and one of his sons told him what the prophet from Judah had said and done.
¹²"Show me which way he went," the old prophet said, and his sons pointed out the road. ¹³"Put a saddle on my donkey," he told them. After they did, he got on the donkey ¹⁴and rode off to look for the prophet from Judah.
The old prophet found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, "Are you the prophet from Judah?"
"Yes, I am."
¹⁵"Come home with me," the old prophet said, "and have something to eat."
¹⁶"I can't go back with you," the prophet replied, "and I can't eat or drink anything with you. ¹⁷The LORD warned me not to eat or drink or to go home the same way I came."
¹⁸The old prophet said, "I'm a prophet too. One of the LORD's angels told me to take you to my house and give you something to eat and drink."
The prophet from Judah did not know that the old prophet was lying, ¹⁹so he went home with him and ate and drank.
²⁰During the meal the LORD gave the old prophet ²¹a message for the prophet from Judah:

Listen to the LORD's message. You have disobeyed the LORD your God. ²²He told you not to eat or drink anything here, but you came home and ate with me. And so, when you die, your body won't be buried in your family tomb.

²³After the meal the old prophet got a donkey ready, ²⁴and the prophet from Judah left. Along the way, a lion attacked and killed him, and the donkey and the lion stood there beside his dead body.
²⁵Some people walked by and saw the body with the lion standing there. They ran into Bethel, telling everyone what they had seen.
²⁶When the old prophet heard the news, he said, "That must be the prophet from Judah. The LORD warned him, but he disobeyed. So the LORD sent a lion to kill him."
²⁷The old prophet told his sons to saddle his donkey, and when it was ready, ²⁸he left. He found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and lion standing there. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. ²⁹The old prophet picked up the body, put it on his own donkey, and took it back to Bethel, so he could bury it and mourn for the prophet from Judah.
³⁰He buried the body in his own family tomb and cried for the prophet. ³¹He said to his sons, "When I die, bury my body next to this prophet. ³²I'm sure that everything he said about the altar in Bethel and the shrines in Samaria will happen."
³³But Jeroboam kept on doing evil things. He appointed men to be priests at the local shrines, even if they were not Levites. In fact, anyone who wanted to be a priest could be one. ³⁴This sinful thing led to the downfall of his kingdom.

JOEL

Joel 1 I am Joel the son of Pethuel. And this is the message
the LORD gave to me.

Locusts Cover the Land

²Listen, you leaders and everyone else in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened before?
³Tell our children! Let it be told to our grandchildren
and their children too.

⁴Swarm after swarm of locusts has attacked our crops,
eating everything in sight.
⁵Sober up, you drunkards! Cry long and loud;
your wine supply is gone.
⁶A powerful nation with countless troops
has invaded our land.
They have the teeth and jaws of powerful lions.
⁷Our grapevines and fig trees are stripped bare;
only naked branches remain.

⁸Grieve like a young woman
mourning for the man she was to marry.
⁹Offerings of grain and wine
are no longer brought to the LORD's temple.
His servants, the priests, are deep in sorrow.
¹⁰Barren fields mourn;
grain, grapes, and olives are scorched and shriveled.

¹¹Mourn for our farms and our vineyards!
There's no wheat or barley growing in our fields.
¹²Grapevines have dried up and so has every tree--
figs and pomegranates, date palms and apples.
All happiness has faded away.

Return to God

¹³Mourn, you priests who serve at the altar of my God.
Spend your days and nights wearing sackcloth.
Offerings of grain and wine
are no longer brought to the LORD's temple.

¹⁴Tell the leaders and people to come together at the temple.
Order them to go without eating and to pray sincerely.
¹⁵We are in for trouble!
Soon the LORD All-Powerful will bring disaster.
¹⁶Our food is already gone; there's no more celebrating
at the temple of our God.

¹⁷Seeds dry up in the ground; no harvest is possible.
Our barns are in bad shape,
with no grain to store in them.
¹⁸Our cattle wander aimlessly, moaning for lack of pasture,
and sheep are suffering.
¹⁹I cry out to you, LORD. Grasslands and forests are eaten
by the scorching heat.
²⁰Wild animals have no water because of you;
rivers and streams are dry, and pastures are parched.