The Deception of the Old Prophet

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

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“Which way did he go?” their father asked. And his sons showed him the way taken by the man of God, who had come from Judah.

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So the prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” Then they saddled the donkey for him, and he mounted it

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and went after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “I am,” he replied.

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So the prophet said to the man of God, “Come home with me and eat some bread.”

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But the man replied, “I cannot return with you or eat bread or drink water with you in this place.

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For I have been told by the word of the LORD: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.’”

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Then the prophet replied, “I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” The old prophet was lying to him,

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

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

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and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because you have defied the word of the LORD and have not kept the commandment that the LORD your God gave you,

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but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place where He told you not to do so, your body shall never reach the tomb of your fathers.’”

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