Beginning
Secession of the Northern Tribes(A)
12 Rehoboam traveled to Shechem because all of Israel went there to install him as king. 2 Nebat’s son Jeroboam heard about it while he was still in Egypt, where he had fled to get away from King Solomon. Jeroboam returned from Egypt 3 after being summoned. When Jeroboam and the entire assembly of Israel arrived, they spoke to Rehoboam, 4 “Your father made our burdens unbearable.[a] Therefore lighten your father’s requirements and his heavy burdens that he placed on us, and we’ll serve you.”
5 “Come again in three days,” Rehoboam[b] told them. So the people left 6 while King Rehoboam conferred with his advisors who had worked for his father Solomon during his administration. He asked them, “What is your advice as to how I should respond to these people?”
7 They advised him, “If today you are a servant, you will serve this people by answering them and speaking kindly to them. Then they will serve you forever.”
8 But Rehoboam[c] ignored the counsel that his elder advisors had given him. Instead, he consulted the younger men who had grown up with him and who worked for[d] him. 9 As a result, he asked them, “What’s your advice so that we can give an answer to these people who have asked me, ‘Please lighten the burden that your father put on us.’?”
10 “This is what you should tell these people who asked you ‘Your father made our burden heavy, but you must make it lighter for us!’” the young men who grew up with Rehoboam[e] replied. “Tell them, ‘My little finger will be thicker than my father’s whole body![f] 11 Not only that, but since my father loaded you down heavily, I’m going to add to that burden. My father disciplined you with whips, but I’m going to discipline you with scorpions!’”
12 So Jeroboam and all the people went back to Rehoboam on the third day, just as they had been directed when the king said, “Come back again in three days.” 13 But the king gave the people a harsh response, because he was ignoring the counsel that his elders had given him. 14 Instead, Rehoboam[g] spoke to them along the lines of what the younger men suggested. He told them, “My father burdened you heavily, but I will add to that burden. If my father disciplined you with whips, I’m going to discipline you with scorpions!”
15 The king would not listen to the people, because the turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill his prediction that the Lord spoke by means of Ahijah the Shilonite to Nebat’s son Jeroboam. 16 When all of Israel saw that the king wasn’t listening to them, the people responded to the king’s message, “What’s the point in following David? We have no inheritance in the descendants of Jesse. Let’s go home,[h] Israel! David, take care of your own household!’ So Israel left for home.[i] 17 And so Rehoboam ruled over the Israelis who lived in the cities of Judah.
18 King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of conscripted labor, but all of Israel stoned him to death, and King Rehoboam had to jump in his chariot and flee back in a hurry to Jerusalem. 19 That’s how Israel came to be in rebellion against David’s dynasty to this day.
Jeroboam Reigns over Israel(B)
20 Now when all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him and invited him to visit their assembly, where they installed him as king over all of Israel. Nobody (with the sole exception of the tribe of Judah) would align with David’s dynasty. 21 As soon as Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled 180,000 elite soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, intending to attack the dynasty of Israel and restore the kingdom to Solomon’s son Rehoboam. 22 But a message from God came to Shemaiah, a man of God: 23 “Tell Solomon’s son Rehoboam, king of Judah, all the dynasty of Judah, Benjamin, and the rest of the people, 24 ‘This is what the Lord says: “You are not to fight or even approach your fellow Israelis in battle. Every soldier is to return to his own home, because this development comes from me.”’” So they listened to what the Lord had to say and returned home,[j] just as the Lord had directed.
Jeroboam’s Idolatry
25 Later on, Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. He also expanded from there and built Penuel. 26 Jeroboam was thinking to himself, “The kingdom is about to return to David’s control.[k] 27 If these people keep going up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the Lord there, the hearts of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. Then they’ll kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah!” 28 So the king sought some advice and then built two golden calves and announced, “It’s too difficult for you to travel to Jerusalem. So here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” 29 He set one of them in Bethel and placed the other one in Dan. 30 Doing this was sinful, because the people traveled as far as Dan to appear before one of their idols.[l] 31 Jeroboam[m] built temples on the high places, and appointed his own priests from the fringe elements of the people who were not descendants of Levi.
32 Jeroboam invented a festival for the fifteenth day of the eighth month similar to the festival that takes place in Judah. He approached the altar that he had set up in Bethel and sacrificed to the calves that he had made, having stationed in Bethel the priests that he had appointed. 33 Then, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, he went up to burn incense on the altar that he had set up in Bethel, thus beginning the festival that he had made up out of his own heart for the Israelis.
Josiah’s Desecration Predicted by a Man of God
13 Right when Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn some incense, a man of God arrived in Bethel from Judah in obedience to a command from the Lord. 2 He cursed[n] the altar in this[o] message from the Lord: “Hey altar! Hey altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘Pay attention to this! A son is going to be born in David’s dynasty. His name will be Josiah. He will sacrifice the priests who burn incense on you in these high places. Human bones will be burned on you!’”[p]
3 Later that same day, he gave them a special display of power[q] of what was to come when he said, “Here’s proof[r] that the Lord has decreed this:[s] Look! This altar will be split apart and the ashes that are on it will spill out.”
4 When he heard the man of God curse[t] the altar in Bethel, the king pointed at the man of God from where the king was standing at the altar. “Seize him!” he ordered. But all of a sudden his hand that he had stretched out dried up, and he could not bring it back to his side! 5 Also, the altar broke apart and the ashes that were on it spilled out from the altar, providing just the proof that the man of God had predicted in his message from the Lord!
6 “Please!” the king begged the man of God, “Ask the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored for me!” So the man of God asked the Lord, and the king’s hand was immediately and fully restored, just like it had been before. 7 So the king told the man of God, “Come back to my palace and rest a while. I’d like to give you a reward.”
8 But the man of God replied to the king, “Even if you were to offer me half of your house, I wouldn’t go with you, and I’m sure not going to eat even a piece of bread or drink water in this place, 9 because the Lord commanded me specifically, ‘You are not to eat bread, drink water, or return by the way that you came to arrive here!’” 10 Then he left, returning a different way than the one by which he had traveled to Bethel.
An Old Prophet Rebukes the Man of God
11 Now there was an old prophet who lived in Bethel, and his sons went to him and told him everything that the man of God had accomplished that day in Bethel, including the message that he had delivered to the king. 12 “Which way did he go?” their father asked him, since his sons had observed the way that the man of God had taken to return to Judah from Bethel. 13 “Saddle my donkey for me!” he ordered.[u] So they saddled the donkey for him 14 and he rode off after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree.[v] “You’re the man of God who came from Judah, aren’t you?” the old prophet[w] asked him.
“I am,” he replied.
15 “Come home with me and have a meal,” he told him.
16 But he replied, “I can’t go back with you to your home, be in your company, or even eat food or drink water with you in this place, 17 because I’ve been given a command in the form of this message from the Lord: ‘You are to eat no food, drink no water, and do not return to Judah[x] by traveling the way by which you go there.’”
18 “I’m a prophet like you,” the old man replied, “and an angel spoke to me and delivered this message from the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house and give him food and water.’” But he was lying, 19 and the man of God[y] accompanied the old prophet[z] back to his house, ate some food, and drank some water.
20 Later, while they were sitting down at the table, a message from the Lord was delivered to the prophet who had brought him back, 21 so he cried out to the man of God from Judah: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because you disobeyed a command from the Lord and haven’t done what the Lord your God commanded you to do, 22 but instead you returned to eat and drink in the very place that he told you “Eat no food and drink no water,” your body will not be buried in the same grave as your ancestors.’”
A Lion Kills the Man of God
23 After the meal was over, and the man had eaten food and had drunk water, the old prophet saddled the donkey for him—that is, for the man of God whom he had brought back. 24 Not long after the man of God[aa] had left, a lion met him along the road and killed him. His body was left lying in the middle of the road with the donkey standing beside it and with the lion also standing next to the body. 25 When some men passed by and noticed the body lying in the middle of the road and the lion standing beside the body, they went straight to the city and told what had happened in the city where the old prophet lived.
26 The prophet who had brought the man of God[ab] back from the road learned about it. “It’s the man of God who disobeyed the message from the Lord,” he said. “That’s why the Lord gave him to that lion, which mauled him and killed him, just as the message from the Lord told me to rebuke him.” 27 Then he ordered his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they did. 28 The old prophet[ac] went out and located the body on the road where the donkey and the lion were standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. 29 The prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to the city where the old man lived so he could mourn and bury him.
30 He buried the corpse in his own grave and his family mourned for him, crying out, “Oh, no! My brother!”
31 After he had buried the man of God,[ad] he gave these instructions to his children: “When I die, bury me in the same grave in which the man of God is buried. Place my bones beside his, 32 because what he predicted by a message from the Lord against the altar in Bethel and the temples built in the high places of the cities of Samaria will certainly come about.”
33 Despite everything that happened, Jeroboam never did repent of his evil practices. Instead, he appointed even more people to act as priests for the high places. Anyone who wanted to be a priest was ordained to be a priest in the high places. 34 This practice became so sinful that the Lord decided[ae] to erase Jeroboam’s dynasty, thus eliminating it from the face of the earth.
God Disciplines Jeroboam’s Family
14 Right at that time, Jeroboam’s son Abijah became ill, 2 so Jeroboam suggested to his wife, “Get up, disguise yourself so that no one will know that you’re Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh where the prophet Ahijah lives. He’s the one who told me that I would be king over this people. 3 Take ten loaves with you, some[af] cakes, and a jar of honey and go visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”
4 So that’s what Jeroboam’s wife did. She got up, went to Shiloh, and found Ahijah’s home. Ahijah was blind, because his eyes could not focus[ag] due to his age. 5 Meanwhile, the Lord had spoken to Ahijah, “Be on your guard! Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, because he is ill. You’re to say such and such to her. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else!”
6 When she arrived, Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came through the doorway. He said this to her:
“Come in, wife of Jeroboam. What is this pretension at being someone else? I have some harsh news.[ah] 7 Go tell Jeroboam:
‘I raised you up from among the people.
‘I made you Commander-in-Chief[ai] over my people Israel.
8 ‘I tore the kingdom away from David’s dynasty.
‘Then I gave it to you.
But you have not lived like my servant David, who kept my commands with all his heart, and did only what I considered to be right.
9 ‘Instead, you have done more evil than everyone who lived before you.
‘You have gone out and crafted other gods for yourself.
‘You made cast images.
‘You have provoked me to anger.
‘You have thrown me behind your back.
10 ‘Therefore, watch while I bring calamity on Jeroboam’s dynasty!
‘I will eliminate every male,[aj] both slave and free in Israel, from Jeroboam.
‘I will burn up Jeroboam’s dynasty, as a man burns up manure until it is gone. 11 Dogs will eat anyone who dies in the city that belongs to Jeroboam’s household. The birds of the sky will eat anyone who dies in the open field, because the Lord has determined it.’
12 “Now get up and go home. When your feet cross the city line, your child will die. 13 Everyone in Israel will mourn for him and will bury him, because he alone from Jeroboam’s family will receive a decent burial, because something good was observed in him with respect to the Lord God of Israel out of all the household of Jeroboam!
14 “In addition to this, the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will eliminate Jeroboam’s dynasty, starting today and from now on. 15 The Lord will attack Israel, and Israel will shake like a reed shakes in a river current! He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and he will scatter them beyond the Euphrates[ak] River, because they erected their Asherim[al] and provoked the Lord to become angry! 16 He will give up Israel because of Jeroboam’s sins that he committed and by which Jeroboam[am] caused Israel to sin.”
17 Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left for Tirzah. As soon as she set foot over the threshold of the house, the child died. 18 All of Israel mourned him at his burial, just as the Lord had said when he spoke through Ahijah the prophet.
The Death of Jeroboam
19 Now as for the rest of Jeroboam’s accomplishments, including how he waged war and how he reigned, you may read about them in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 20 Jeroboam reigned for 22 years and then died, as had his ancestors, and his son Nadab reigned in his place.
Rehoboam Reigns over Judah(C)
21 Meanwhile, Solomon’s son Rehoboam reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to place his Name. His mother was an Ammonite named Naamah. 22 Judah practiced what the Lord considered to be evil. They did more to provoke him to jealousy than their ancestors had ever done by committing the sins that they committed. 23 They erected high places, sacred pillars, and Asherim[an] for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. 24 They even maintained male shrine prostitutes throughout the land, and imitated every detestable practice that the nations practiced whom the Lord had expelled in front of the Israelis.
25 As a result, during the fifth year of the reign of[ao] King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt invaded and attacked Jerusalem. 26 He stripped the Lord’s Temple and the royal palace of their treasures. He took everything, even the gold shields that Solomon had made. 27 King Rehoboam made shields out of bronze to take their place, and then committed them to the care and custody of the commanders of those who guarded the entrance to the royal palace. 28 Whenever the king entered the Lord’s Temple, the guards would carry them to and from the guard’s quarters.
29 As to the rest of Rehoboam’s accomplishments, and everything else that he undertook, they are recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, aren’t they? 30 There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, 31 but eventually Rehoboam died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His mother’s name had been Naamah the Ammonite, and his son Abijah became king to replace him.
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