Egypt Attacks Judah

12 When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he grew strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord, he and all Israel with him.^(A)

¹⁷ They strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and for three years they made Rehoboam son of Solomon secure, for they walked for three years in the way of David and Solomon.^(A)

Death of Rehoboam

¹³ So King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.^(A)

¹³ Under their command was an army of three hundred seven thousand five hundred, who could make war with mighty power to help the king against the enemy.^{(A) 14} Uzziah provided for all the army the shields, spears, helmets, coats of mail, bows, and stones for slinging. ¹⁵ In Jerusalem he set up machines, invented by skilled workers, on the towers and the corners for shooting arrows and large stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped until he became strong.

Pride and Apostasy

¹⁶ But when he had become strong he grew proud, to his destruction. For he acted unfaithfully toward the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to make offering on the altar of incense.^(B)

²² Judah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; they provoked him to jealousy with their sins that they committed, more than all that their ancestors had done.^{(A) 23} For they also built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles^[a] on every high hill and under every green tree;^{(B) 24} there were also illicit priests in the land. They committed all the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel.^(C)

Relentless Judgment on Israel