Beginning

The Queen of Sheba visits Solomon

9 The Queen of Sheba heard news that Solomon was a great king. So she came to ask Solomon some difficult questions to see how wise he was. She arrived at Jerusalem with a big group of servants. She had many camels that carried spices. They also carried a lot of gold and valuable jewels. When she came to Solomon, she talked to him about everything that was in her mind. ² Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing that was too difficult for him to explain to her. ³ The Queen of Sheba saw that Solomon was very wise.^[a] She saw the palace that he had built. ⁴ She saw all the food that he ate in his palace. She saw all his servants and officers and their beautiful clothes. She saw the servants who prepared his food and wine. She saw the burnt offerings that he offered in the Lord's temple. All these things caused her to hold her breath in surprise.

⁵ She said to the king, ‘In my own country I heard news about your wisdom and about all the things that you had done. Everything that I heard was true! ⁶ But I did not believe those things until I came here. Now I have seen everything with my own eyes, and it is true! Really, they told me less than half of what was true! You are even wiser than the report that people told me. ⁷ God has blessed your people and your officers! They are always with you, and they can listen to your wise words. ⁸ So we should praise the Lord your God! He is happy with you and he has chosen you to rule Israel on his behalf. Your God will continue to love Israel for ever, and he will always make them strong. So he has made you king to rule them in a fair and honest way.’

⁹ The Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon more than four tons of gold, a lot of spices and many valuable jewels. Nobody has ever brought such a great number of spices as she gave to the king.

¹⁰ King Hiram's men had brought gold from Ophir. King Solomon's men had helped them to do this. They also brought very good wood, and valuable jewels. ¹¹ The king used the wood to make steps for the Lord's temple and for the king's palace. He also used it to make harps and lyres for the musicians. Nobody had ever seen things like those in Judah.

¹² King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba everything that she wanted. He gave more things to her than she had brought to him. Then she left with all her servants and she returned to her own country.

Solomon's riches

¹³ Solomon received 25 tons of gold each year. ¹⁴ He also received money from traders and from people who travelled to buy things. The kings of Arabia and the rulers of each region in Israel also brought gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵ King Solomon's workers used gold to make 200 large shields. They hit the gold with hammers to make it flat. They used about four kilograms of gold to cover each shield. ¹⁶ They also made 300 small shields in the same way. They used about 2 kilograms of gold to cover each shield. He put these shields in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.^[b]

¹⁷ The king used ivory to make a large throne. He covered it with pure gold. ¹⁸ There were six steps up to the throne. They fixed a gold box to the throne for the king to put his feet on. On both sides of the seat there were places to put his arms. An image of a lion stood on each side of the throne. ¹⁹ There were 12 more images of lions on the six steps. There was one lion at each end of every step. There was no throne like it in any other kingdom. ²⁰ They used gold to make all King Solomon's cups that he drank from. In the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, all the dishes and other things were made with gold. They used pure gold. They did not make anything with silver. In Solomon's time, people did not think that silver was very valuable. ²¹ The king had many large ships that King Hiram's men could sail across the seas.^[c] Every three years they returned to Solomon with their loads. They brought to him gold, silver and ivory. They also brought apes and monkeys.^[d]

²² King Solomon was richer and wiser than any other king in the world. ²³ The kings of every nation in the world wanted to talk to Solomon. They wanted to listen to the wisdom that God had given to him. ²⁴ Every year, people who came to visit Solomon brought him gifts. They brought things that were made from silver and gold, as well as clothes, weapons, spices, horses and mules.

²⁵ Solomon had places to keep 4,000 horses that pulled his chariots. He also had 12,000 horses. He kept them in the cities that he had chosen for this and also in Jerusalem where he lived. ²⁶ He ruled over all the kings around Israel, from the Euphrates river as far as the Philistines' country and the border of Egypt. ²⁷ While Solomon ruled as king, there was as much silver in Jerusalem as stones! There was as much wood from cedar trees as there were fig trees that grew in the low hills in the west. ²⁸ People brought horses to Solomon from Egypt and from all the other countries.

Solomon dies

²⁹ People wrote down everything else that Solomon did while he ruled as king, from the beginning to the end. The prophet Nathan wrote them down in his book. The prophet Ahijah who came from Shiloh also wrote them down. The prophet Iddo also wrote about them in his book of the visions that he saw about Nebat's son Jeroboam. ³⁰ Solomon ruled over all Israel for 40 years while he lived in Jerusalem. ³¹ Then he died. They buried him with his ancestors, in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king after him.

The Israelites ask Rehoboam to make their work easier

10 Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all the Israelites had gone there to make him king.^{[e] 2} At this time, Nebat's son Jeroboam was in Egypt. He had been living there since he ran away from King Solomon. When he heard the news about Rehoboam, he returned from Egypt. ³ The Israelites sent a message to Jeroboam to meet with them. Then Jeroboam and all the Israelites went to speak to Rehoboam. They said to him, ⁴ ‘Your father caused us to work too hard. Please make the work easier for us. If you do that, we will serve you as our king.’ ⁵ Rehoboam answered them, ‘Go away for three days. Then come back to me.’ So the people went away.

⁶ Then King Rehoboam went to talk to the older advisors who had served his father Solomon. He asked them, ‘What answer should I give to these people?’

⁷ They replied, ‘If you agree to be kind to these people and help them, they will always serve you as their king. So do what they are asking you to do.’

⁸ But Rehoboam did not agree with their advice. Instead he talked to some younger men. They had been his friends since they were young and now they were his advisors. ⁹ He asked them, ‘What do you think that I should say to these people? They want me to make their work easier.’

¹⁰ Rehoboam's young advisors said, ‘The people said to you, “Your father made us work too hard. Please make our work easier.” You should tell them, “Even my little finger is thicker than my father's whole body! ¹¹ My father made you work hard. I will make you work even harder! My father punished you with little whips. I will punish you with whips that bite your skin!” ’

Rehoboam refuses to do what the people want

¹² Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam after three days. That was because the king had said, ‘Return to me in three days.’

¹³ King Rehoboam spoke cruel words to the people. He did not agree to say what the older men had told him to say. ¹⁴ Instead, he did what the young men had suggested. He said to the people, ‘My father gave you work that was too hard for you. I will make it even worse! My father punished you with little whips. I will punish you with whips that bite!’

¹⁵ So the king did not agree to do what the people wanted him to do. It was God who caused this to happen. He had already given his message about this to Nebat's son Jeroboam. The prophet Ahijah who came from Shiloh had spoken the Lord's message to Jeroboam.^[f]

Israel and Judah become separate kingdoms

¹⁶ All the Israelites realized that the king refused to listen to them. So they said to the king,

So the Israelites went to their homes. ¹⁷ But Rehoboam continued to rule over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.^[g]

¹⁸ King Rehoboam sent a man called Adoniram to talk to the Israelite people. Adoniram had authority over the men who had to work for Rehoboam. But the Israelites threw stones at Adoniram and they killed him.^[h] So King Rehoboam quickly got into his chariot and he escaped to Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Since that time, the tribes in the north of Israel have not accepted the authority of King David's descendants.

11 Rehoboam arrived back in Jerusalem. He brought together all the men from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who knew how to fight. There were 180,000 of them. Rehoboam wanted to attack the Israelite tribes so that he could rule them again as king. ² But the Lord told the prophet Shemaiah, ³ ‘Say this to Solomon's son Rehoboam, the king of Judah. Say it to all the Israelite people who belong to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. ⁴ This is what the Lord says: “Do not go and attack your brothers. Do not fight against them. Instead, you must all go home. I, the Lord, have decided that this must happen.” ’

So they obeyed the Lord's message. They did not go to attack Jeroboam.^[i]

Rehoboam rules Judah as king

⁵ Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem. He built these strong cities in Judah to make it safe:

He made all those cities in Judah and Benjamin very strong. ¹¹ He made their buildings stronger. He put important officers in them to rule over them. He stored food, olive oil and wine in them. ¹² He supplied every city with shields and spears. He did all these things to make them very strong places. So Rehoboam kept his authority over Judah and Benjamin.

¹³ The priests and Levites who lived everywhere in Israel agreed to serve Rehoboam. ¹⁴ The Levites even left their lands and their houses to come to Judah and Jerusalem.^[j] They came because Jeroboam and his sons refused to let them serve the Lord as his priests. ¹⁵ Jeroboam chose his own priests to offer sacrifices at the altars that he had built on the hills. They worshipped the idols of goats and young bulls that Jeroboam had made. ¹⁶ But some people from every tribe in Israel still wanted to worship the Lord, Israel's God. So they came with the Levites to Jerusalem. They came to offer sacrifices to the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ¹⁷ These people helped to make the kingdom of Judah stronger. They were faithful to Solomon's son Rehoboam for three years. During that time, they lived in the way that David and Solomon had taught them to live.

Rehoboam's family

¹⁸ Rehoboam married Mahalath. Her father was David's son Jerimoth. Her mother was Abihail, the daughter of Jesse's son Eliab. ¹⁹ She gave birth to three sons for Rehoboam. Their names were Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. ²⁰ Then Rehoboam married Absalom's daughter Maakah. She gave birth to Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith for him. ²¹ Rehoboam loved Absalom's daughter Maakah better than he loved any of his other wives. He had 18 wives and 60 slave wives. He was the father of 28 sons and 60 daughters.

²² Rehoboam chose Maakah's son Abijah to be the leader over his other sons. He wanted Abijah to become the next king. ²³ He did a wise thing with his other sons. He sent many of them to the different regions of Judah and Benjamin, to live in all the strong cities. He supplied them with plenty of food. He also found many women to become their wives.

Rehoboam turns away from the Lord

12 Rehoboam became a strong king who ruled with authority. But after that, he stopped obeying the law of the Lord. All the Israelites did the same thing. ² They did not serve the Lord in a faithful way. Because of that, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year that Rehoboam was king Judah. ³ King Shishak's army had 1,200 chariots and 60,000 soldiers who rode on horses. Many other soldiers came with him from Egypt. They included men from Libya, Sukkoth and Ethiopia. ⁴ He took power over Judah's strong cities. Then his army marched to attack Jerusalem.

⁵ The prophet Shemaiah then came to speak to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah. They had met together in Jerusalem because they were afraid of King Shishak. Shemaiah said to them, ‘The Lord says this: “You have turned away from me. So now I have turned away from you. I will let Shishak take power over you.” ’

⁶ The leaders of Israel and the king made themselves humble. They said, ‘The Lord is right to do that.’

⁷ The Lord saw that they had made themselves humble. So he said to Shemaiah, ‘Because they have made themselves humble, I will not destroy them. I will soon rescue them. I will not use Shishak to completely destroy Jerusalem's people. But because I am angry, ⁸ they will become his servants. Then they will learn what it is like to serve a foreign king instead of me.’

⁹ King Shishak of Egypt then attacked Jerusalem. He took away the valuable things that were in the Lord's temple and in the king's palace. He took everything for himself. That included the gold shields that King Solomon had made. ¹⁰ So Rehoboam used bronze to make other shields instead. He gave them to the officers of his own soldiers. These soldiers stood as guards at the entrance of the king's palace. ¹¹ Every time that the king went to the Lord's temple, the guards carried the shields. After that, they took them back to the guards' room where they stored them.

Rehoboam turns back to the Lord

¹² Rehoboam made himself humble. So the Lord did not destroy him. He stopped being angry with Rehoboam. He caused good things to happen in Judah.

¹³ Rehoboam made his authority as king in Jerusalem very strong. He was 41 years old when he became king. He ruled for 17 years in Jerusalem. That was the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel. He chose it as the place where people would give honour to his name. Rehoboam's mother was an Ammonite woman. Her name was Naamah. ¹⁴ Rehoboam did wicked things because he did not want to serve the Lord faithfully.

¹⁵ All the things that happened while Rehoboam was king of Judah are written in some books. The prophet Shemaiah and the prophet Iddo wrote those things in their books. The books include lists of the ancestors of Rehoboam's family. Rehoboam and Jeroboam fought wars against each other all the time.

¹⁶ Rehoboam died and they buried him beside his ancestors in the City of David. His son Abijah became king after him.^[k]