M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

How Rehoboam lost the kingdom

12 Rehoboam went to Shechem where all Israel had come to make him king. ² When Jeroboam, Nebat’s son, heard the news, he returned from Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon. ³ The people sent and called for Jeroboam, who along with the entire Israelite assembly went and said to Rehoboam, ⁴ “Your father made our workload^[a] very hard for us. If you will lessen the demands your father made of us and lighten the heavy workload he demanded from us, then we will serve you.”

⁵ He answered them, “Come back in three days.” So the people left.

⁶ King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon when he was alive. “What do you advise?” Rehoboam asked. “How should I respond to these people?”

⁷ “If you will be a servant to this people by answering them and speaking good words today,” they replied, “then they will be your servants forever.”

⁸ But Rehoboam ignored the advice the elders gave him and instead sought the counsel of the young advisors who had grown up with him and now served him. ⁹ “What do you advise?” he asked them. “How should we respond to these people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the workload your father demanded of us’?”

¹⁰ The young people who had grown up with him said to him, “This people said to you, ‘Your father made our workload heavy; lighten it for us!’ Now this is what you should say to them: ‘My baby finger^[b] is thicker than my father’s entire waist! ¹¹ So if my father made your workload heavy, I’ll make it even heavier! If my father disciplined you with whips, I’ll do it with scorpions!’”

¹² Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had specified when he said, “Come back to me in three days.” ¹³ The king then answered the people harshly. He ignored the elders’ advice ¹⁴ and instead followed the young people’s advice. He said, “My father made your workload heavy, but I’ll make it even heavier! My father disciplined you with whips, but I’ll do it with scorpions!”

¹⁵ The king didn’t listen to the people because this turn of events came from the Lord so that he might keep the promise he delivered through Ahijah from Shiloh concerning Jeroboam, Nebat’s son. ¹⁶ When all Israel saw that the king wouldn’t listen to them, the people answered the king:

Then the Israelites went back to their homes, ¹⁷ and Rehoboam ruled over only the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ When King Rehoboam sent Adoram to them (he was the leader of the work gang), all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam quickly got into his chariot and fled to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. ²⁰ When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him. They called him to the assembly and crowned him king of all Israel.

Nothing was left to the house of David except the tribe of Judah. ²¹ When Rehoboam arrived at Jerusalem, he assembled the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—one hundred eighty thousand select warriors—to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom for Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. ²² But God’s word came to Shemaiah the man of God, ²³ “Tell Judah’s King Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the rest of the people, ²⁴ ‘This is what the Lord says: Don’t make war against your relatives the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, because this is my plan.’” When they heard the Lord’s words, they went back home, just as the Lord had said.

Jeroboam I and the shrines

²⁵ Jeroboam fortified Shechem at Mount Ephraim and lived there. From there he also fortified Penuel. ²⁶ Jeroboam thought to himself, The kingdom is in danger of reverting to the house of David. ²⁷ If these people continue to sacrifice at the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, they will again become loyal to their master Rehoboam, Judah’s king, and they will kill me so they can return to Judah’s King Rehoboam. ²⁸ So the king asked for advice and then made two gold calves. He said to the people, “It’s too far for you to go all the way up to Jerusalem. Look, Israel! Here are your gods who brought you out from the land of Egypt.” ²⁹ He put one calf in Bethel, and the other he placed in Dan. ³⁰ This act was sinful. The people went to worship before the one calf at Bethel and before the other one as far as Dan.^{[c] 31} Jeroboam made shrines on the high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, but none were Levites. ³² Jeroboam set a date for a celebration on the fifteenth day of the eighth month.^[d] It was just like the celebration in Judah. He sacrificed on the altar. At Bethel he sacrificed to the calves he had made. There also he installed the priests for the shrines he had made. ³³ On the fifteenth day of the eighth month—the time he alone had decided—Jeroboam went up^[e] to the altar he had built in Bethel. He made a celebration for the Israelites and offered sacrifices on the altar by burning them up.^[f]

Values and priorities

3 So then, my brothers and sisters, be glad in the Lord. It’s no trouble for me to repeat the same things to you because they will help keep you on track. ² Watch out for the “dogs.” Watch out for people who do evil things. Watch out for those who insist on circumcision, which is really mutilation. ³ We are the circumcision. We are the ones who serve by God’s Spirit and who boast in Christ Jesus. We don’t put our confidence in rituals performed on the body, ⁴ though I have good reason to have this kind of confidence. If anyone else has reason to put their confidence in physical advantages, I have even more:

⁷ These things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him. In Christ I have a righteousness that is not my own and that does not come from the Law but rather from the faithfulness of Christ. It is the righteousness of God that is based on faith. ¹⁰ The righteousness that I have comes from knowing Christ, the power of his resurrection, and the participation in his sufferings. It includes being conformed to his death ¹¹ so that I may perhaps reach the goal of the resurrection of the dead.

¹² It’s not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this purpose. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I myself don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. ¹⁴ The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s upward call in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ So all of us who are spiritually mature should think this way, and if anyone thinks differently, God will reveal it to him or her. ¹⁶ Only let’s live in a way that is consistent with whatever level we have reached.

Imitate Paul

¹⁷ Brothers and sisters, become imitators of me and watch those who live this way—you can use us as models. ¹⁸ As I have told you many times and now say with deep sadness, many people live as enemies of the cross. ¹⁹ Their lives end with destruction. Their god is their stomach, and they take pride in their disgrace because their thoughts focus on earthly things. ²⁰ Our citizenship is in heaven. We look forward to a savior that comes from there—the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform our humble bodies so that they are like his glorious body, by the power that also makes him able to subject all things to himself.

Chambers and promenades

42 Then he led me north to the outer courtyard and brought me into the set of chambers opposite the yard and the structure to the north. ² The length of the facade at the north entrance was one hundred fifty feet, its depth seventy-five feet. ³ It was next to the twenty chambers that belonged to the inner courtyard and next to the pavement of the outer courtyard, and it had three courses of promenades. ⁴ In front of the chambers there was a passage fifteen feet wide, and to the inside, a passage eighteen inches wide. The entrance to the chambers was on the north. ⁵ The upper chambers were smaller, because the promenades took up more space from them than from the first and second stories. ⁶ This was because the promenades were arranged in three levels, but they didn’t have columns like those in the courtyards. For this reason, the top story was narrower than the first and second stories. ⁷ A stone wall ran parallel to the chambers facing the outer courtyard. It was seventy-five feet long, ⁸ the same length, seventy-five feet, as the chambers facing the outer courtyard. Those facing the temple were one hundred fifty feet. ^9-10 These chambers were entered from the outer courtyard at the end of the courtyard wall, because the entrance was at the end of the chambers at the east. South of the yard and the building, there were more chambers with a passage ¹¹ in front of them. The design of the chambers resembled the ones to the north in length and width, as well as in all their exits. The arrangement of the entrances ¹² to the chambers on the south side was identical as well. One entered from the east at the beginning of the corresponding wall.

¹³ Then he said to me, “The north and south chambers that face the building and the yard are the holy chambers where the priests eat the offerings that have been brought to the Lord. They are most holy. Here they will place the most holy things, the grain offering, the purification offering, and the compensation offering. The place is holy. ¹⁴ When the priests enter, they won’t go out of the sanctuary to the outer courtyard. There they will place the priestly vests that they wore when they were ministering, because these garments are also holy. They will put on other garments when they go out to the people’s area.”

¹⁵ When he finished making the interior measurements of the temple, he led me out toward the east gate, and he measured all the way around. ¹⁶ He used the same measuring rod on all four sides. He measured the east side, seven hundred fifty feet; ¹⁷ the north side, seven hundred fifty feet; and ¹⁸ the south side, seven hundred fifty feet. ¹⁹ He turned to the west side, seven hundred fifty feet. ²⁰ On all four sides he measured the wall all the way around. Its length was seven hundred fifty feet, and its width seven hundred fifty feet. So he made a division between the holy and the ordinary.

Psalm 94