Paul's First Letter to the
CORINTHIANS

1 Corinthians 1 From Paul, who was called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Sosthenes--
²To the church of God which is in Corinth, to all who are called to be God's holy people, who belong to him in union with Christ Jesus, together with all people everywhere who worship our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
³May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Blessings in Christ

⁴I always give thanks to my God for you because of the grace he has given you through Christ Jesus. ⁵For in union with Christ you have become rich in all things, including all speech and all knowledge. ⁶The message about Christ has become so firmly established in you ⁷that you have not failed to receive a single blessing, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be faultless on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹God is to be trusted, the God who called you to have fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Divisions in the Church

¹⁰By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ I appeal to all of you, my friends, to agree in what you say, so that there will be no divisions among you. Be completely united, with only one thought and one purpose. ¹¹For some people from Chloe's family have told me quite plainly, my friends, that there are quarrels among you. ¹²Let me put it this way: each one of you says something different. One says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Peter"; and another, "I follow Christ." ¹³Christ has been divided into groups! Was it Paul who died on the cross for you? Were you baptized as Paul's disciples?
¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius. ¹⁵No one can say, then, that you were baptized as my disciples. ( ¹⁶Oh yes, I also baptized Stephanas and his family; but I can't remember whether I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to tell the Good News, and to tell it without using the language of human wisdom, in order to make sure that Christ's death on the cross is not robbed of its power.

Worship at Bethel Is Condemned

The Old Prophet of Bethel

¹¹At that time there was an old prophet living in Bethel. His sons came and told him what the prophet from Judah had done in Bethel that day and what he had said to King Jeroboam. ¹²"Which way did he go when he left?" the old prophet asked them. They showed him the road ¹³and he told them to saddle his donkey for him. They did so, and he rode off ¹⁴down the road after the prophet from Judah and found him sitting under an oak tree. "Are you the prophet from Judah?" he asked.
"I am," the man answered.
¹⁵"Come home and have a meal with me," he said.
¹⁶But the prophet from Judah answered, "I can't go home with you or accept your hospitality. And I won't eat or drink anything with you here, ¹⁷because the LORD has commanded me not to eat or drink a thing, and not to return home the same way I came."
¹⁸Then the old prophet from Bethel said to him, "I, too, am a prophet just like you, and at the LORD's command an angel told me to take you home with me and offer you my hospitality." But the old prophet was lying.
¹⁹So the prophet from Judah went home with the old prophet and had a meal with him. ²⁰As they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the old prophet, ²¹and he cried out to the prophet from Judah, "The LORD says that you disobeyed him and did not do what he commanded. ²²Instead, you returned and ate a meal in a place he had ordered you not to eat in. Because of this you will be killed, and your body will not be buried in your family grave."
²³After they had finished eating, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet from Judah, ²⁴who rode off. On the way a lion met him and killed him. His body lay on the road, and the donkey and the lion stood beside it. ²⁵Some men passed by and saw the body on the road, with the lion standing near by. They went on into Bethel and reported what they had seen.
²⁶When the old prophet heard about it, he said, "That is the prophet who disobeyed the LORD's command! And so the LORD sent the lion to attack and kill him, just as the LORD said he would." ²⁷Then he said to his sons, "Saddle my donkey for me." They did so, ²⁸and he rode off and found the prophet's body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion still standing by it. The lion had not eaten the body or attacked the donkey. ²⁹The old prophet picked up the body, put it on the donkey, and brought it back to Bethel to mourn over it and bury it. ³⁰He buried it in his own family grave, and he and his sons mourned over it, saying, "Oh my brother, my brother!" ³¹After the burial the prophet said to his sons, "When I die, bury me in this grave and lay my body next to his. ³²The words that he spoke at the LORD's command against the altar in Bethel and against all the places of worship in the towns of Samaria will surely come true."

Jeroboam's Fatal Sin

³³King Jeroboam of Israel still did not turn from his evil ways but continued to choose priests from ordinary families to serve at the altars he had built. He ordained as priest anyone who wanted to be one. ³⁴This sin on his part brought about the ruin and total destruction of his dynasty.

The Book of
JOEL

1 This is the LORD's message to Joel son of Pethuel.

The People Mourn the Destruction of the Crops

²Pay attention, you older people;
everyone in Judah, listen.
Has anything like this ever happened
in your time or the time of your ancestors?
³Tell your children about it;
they will tell their children,
who in turn will tell the next generation.

⁴Swarm after swarm of locusts settled on the crops;
what one swarm left, the next swarm devoured.
⁵Wake up and weep, you drunkards;
cry, you wine-drinkers;
the grapes for making new wine have been destroyed.

⁶An army of locusts has attacked our land;
they are powerful and too many to count;
their teeth are as sharp as those of a lion.
⁷They have destroyed our grapevines
and chewed up our fig trees.
They have stripped off the bark,
till the branches are white.

⁸Cry, you people, like a young woman who mourns the death
of the man she was going to marry.
⁹There is no grain or wine to offer in the Temple;
the priests mourn because they have no offerings for the LORD.
¹⁰The fields are bare;
the ground mourns
because the grain is destroyed,
the grapes are dried up,
and the olive trees are withered.

¹¹Grieve, you farmers;
cry, you that take care of the vineyards,
because the wheat, the barley,
yes all the crops are destroyed.
¹²The grapevines and fig trees have withered;
all the fruit trees have wilted and died.
The joy of the people is gone.
¹³Put on sackcloth and weep,
you priests who serve at the altar!
Go into the Temple and mourn all night!
There is no grain or wine to offer your God.
¹⁴Give orders for a fast;
call an assembly!
Gather the leaders
and all the people of Judah
into the Temple of the LORD your God
and cry out to him!
¹⁵The day of the LORD is near,
the day when the Almighty brings destruction.
What terror that day will bring!

¹⁶We look on helpless as our crops are destroyed.
There is no joy in the Temple of our God.
¹⁷The seeds die in the dry earth.
There is no grain to be stored,
and so the empty granaries are in ruins.
¹⁸The cattle are bellowing in distress
because there is no pasture for them;
the flocks of sheep also suffer.
¹⁹I cry out to you, LORD,
because the pastures and trees are dried up,
as though a fire had burned them.
²⁰Even the wild animals cry out to you
because the streams have become dry.