² They went around through Judah and gathered the Levites from all the towns of Judah and the heads of families of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem.

Priests and Levites Support Rehoboam

¹³ The priests and the Levites who were in all Israel presented themselves to him from all their territories. ¹⁴ The Levites had left their pasturelands and possessions and had come to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had prevented them from serving as priests of the Lord^{(A) 15} and had appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goat-demons and for the calves that he had made.^{(B) 16} Those who had set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came after them from all the tribes of Israel to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their ancestors.^{(C) 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.^(D)

¹⁵ Be careful, then, how you live,^[a] not as unwise people but as wise,

Coming Persecutions

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.^(A)

² He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah; all these were the sons of King Jehoshaphat of Judah.^[a]

⁶ The scribe Shemaiah son of Nethanel, a Levite, recorded them in the presence of the king, and the officers, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech son of Abiathar, and the heads of ancestral houses of the priests and of the Levites—one ancestral house being chosen for Eleazar and one chosen for Ithamar.

¹² He said to them, “You are the heads of families of the Levites; sanctify yourselves, you and your kindred, so that you may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it.^(A)