¹⁹ And to this day the northern tribes of Israel have refused to be ruled by a descendant of David.

⁵ Don’t you realize that the Lord, the God of Israel, made a lasting covenant^[a] with David, giving him and his descendants the throne of Israel forever? ⁶ Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, a mere servant of David’s son Solomon, rebelled against his master. ⁷ Then a whole gang of scoundrels joined him, defying Solomon’s son Rehoboam when he was young and inexperienced and could not stand up to them.

¹⁶ When all Israel realized^[a] that the king had refused to listen to them, they responded,

So all the people of Israel returned home.

⁹ These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place,^[a] which is in front of the Most Holy Place, but not from the outside. They are still there to this day.

²¹ For when the Lord^[a] tore Israel away from the kingdom of David, they chose Jeroboam son of Nebat as their king. But Jeroboam drew Israel away from following the Lord and made them commit a great sin. ²² And the people of Israel persisted in all the evil ways of Jeroboam. They did not turn from these sins ²³ until the Lord finally swept them away from his presence, just as all his prophets had warned. So Israel was exiled from their land to Assyria, where they remain to this day.

¹⁹ And to this day the northern tribes of Israel have refused to be ruled by a descendant of David.

²⁰ When the people of Israel learned of Jeroboam’s return from Egypt, they called an assembly and made him king over all Israel. So only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the family of David.

⁹ Joshua also set up another pile of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. And they are there to this day.