1 Kings 20:36
Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him. Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.
The history to which this warning belongs is the record of Ahab in 1 Kings 16-22, preserved for the learning and profit of later men and kings. Ahab was the seventh king of Israel and the second ruler of the third Israelite dynasty, a contemporary of Jehoshaphat of Judah and Elijah the Tishbite, reigning twenty-two years early in the ninth century before Christ when Judah and Israel reached the height of power and prosperity. As a man and as a prince he received divine care and more than average opportunities, and as a civil ruler he was successful, clever, skilled, and patriotic toward his people and country, yet he was a moral coward where he should have been strongest, selling himself to the worship of many heathen gods and enforcing their worship upon his monotheistic people.
The verse declares that disobeying the voice of the LORD brought immediate, foretold punishment upon the man who refused to obey. As soon as he departed, a lion found him and slew him, exactly as he had been warned that a lion would slay him. In the surrounding account a servant's busyness allowed a prisoner to escape, showing how neglected responsibility can result in loss.