⁴⁰ There I was—the heat consumed me by day and the frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.

²³ you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.^(A) You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.^(B)

²² but you went back and ate food and drank water in the place that he said to you, “Do not eat food and do not drink water”^(A)—your corpse will never reach the grave of your ancestors.’”^(B)

²³ So after he had eaten food and after he had drunk, the old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet he had brought back. ²⁴ When he left,^[a] a lion attacked^[b] him along the way and killed him.^(C) His corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey was standing beside it; the lion was standing beside the corpse too.

²⁵ There were men passing by who saw the corpse thrown on the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and spoke about it in the city where the old prophet lived. ²⁶ When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard about it, he said, “He is the man of God who disobeyed the Lord’s command. The Lord has given him to the lion, and it has mauled and killed him, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to him.”

²⁷ Then the old prophet instructed his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” They saddled it,^{(D) 28} and he went and found the corpse thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse or mauled the donkey. ²⁹ So the prophet lifted the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came into the city to mourn and to bury him. ³⁰ Then he laid the corpse in his own grave,^(E) and they mourned over him, “Oh, my brother!” ^(F)

³⁷ Jezebel’s corpse will be like manure^(A) on the surface of the ground in the plot of land at Jezreel so that no one will be able to say: This is Jezebel.’”