Old/New Testament
10 All the leaders of Israel came to Shechem for Rehoboam’s coronation. 2-3 Meanwhile, friends of Jeroboam (son of Nebat) sent word to him of Solomon’s death. He was in Egypt at the time, where he had gone to escape from King Solomon. He now quickly returned, and was present at the coronation, and led the people’s demands on Rehoboam:
4 “Your father was a hard master,” they said. “Be easier on us than he was, and we will let you be our king!”
5 Rehoboam told them to return in three days for his decision. 6 He discussed their demand with the old men who had counseled his father Solomon.
“What shall I tell them?” he asked.
7 “If you want to be their king,” they replied, “you will have to give them a favorable reply and treat them with kindness.”
8-9 But he rejected their advice and asked the opinion of the young men who had grown up with him. “What do you fellows think I should do?” he asked. “Shall I be easier on them than my father was?”
10 “No!” they replied. “Tell them, ‘If you think my father was hard on you, just wait and see what I’ll be like!’ Tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! 11 I am going to be tougher on you, not easier! My father used whips on you, but I’ll use scorpions!’”
12 So when Jeroboam and the people returned in three days to hear King Rehoboam’s decision, 13 he spoke roughly to them; for he refused the advice of the old men 14 and followed the counsel of the younger ones.
“My father gave you heavy burdens, but I will give you heavier!” he told them. “My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions!”
15 So the king turned down the people’s demands. (God caused him to do it in order to fulfill his prediction[a] spoken to Jeroboam by Ahijah the Shilonite.) 16 When the people realized what the king was saying, they turned their backs and deserted him.
“Forget David and his dynasty!” they shouted angrily. “We’ll get someone else to be our king. Let Rehoboam rule his own tribe of Judah! Let’s go home!” So they did.
17 The people of the tribe of Judah, however, remained loyal to Rehoboam. 18 Afterwards, when King Rehoboam sent Hadoram to draft forced labor from the other tribes of Israel, the people stoned him to death. When this news reached King Rehoboam, he jumped into his chariot and fled to Jerusalem. 19 And Israel has refused to be ruled by a descendant of David to this day.
11 Upon arrival at Jerusalem, Rehoboam mobilized the armies of Judah and Benjamin, 180,000 strong, and declared war against the rest of Israel in an attempt to reunite the kingdom.
2 But the Lord told Shemaiah the prophet,
3 “Go and say to King Rehoboam of Judah, Solomon’s son, and to the people of Judah and of Benjamin:
4 “‘The Lord says, Do not fight against your brothers. Go home, for I am behind their rebellion.’” So they obeyed the Lord and refused to fight against Jeroboam.
5-10 Rehoboam stayed in Jerusalem and fortified these cities of Judah with walls and gates to protect himself: Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, Beth-zur, Soco, Adullam, Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron.
11 He also rebuilt and strengthened the forts, and manned them with companies of soldiers under their officers, and stored them with food, olive oil, and wine. 12 Shields and spears were placed in armories in every city as a further safety measure. For only Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to him.
13-14 However, the priests and Levites from the other tribes now abandoned their homes and moved to Judah and Jerusalem, for King Jeroboam had fired them, telling them to stop being priests of the Lord. 15 He had appointed other priests instead who encouraged the people to worship idols instead of God and to sacrifice to carved statues of goats and calves, which he placed on the hills. 16 Laymen, too, from all over Israel began moving to Jerusalem where they could freely worship the Lord God of their fathers and sacrifice to him. 17 This strengthened the kingdom of Judah, so King Rehoboam survived for three years without difficulty; for during those years there was an earnest effort to obey the Lord as King David and King Solomon had done.[b]
18 Rehoboam married his cousin[c] Mahalath. She was the daughter of David’s son Jerimoth and of Abihail, the daughter of David’s brother Eliab. 19 Three sons were born from this marriage—Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.
20 Later he married Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. The children she bore him were Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 21 He loved Maacah more than any of his other wives and concubines (he had eighteen wives and sixty concubines—with twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters). 22 Maacah’s son Abijah was his favorite, and he intended to make him the next king. 23 He very wisely scattered his other sons in the fortified cities throughout the land of Judah and Benjamin, and gave them large allowances and arranged for them to have several wives apiece.
12 But just when Rehoboam was at the height of his popularity and power he abandoned the Lord, and the people followed him in this sin. 2 As a result, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign 3 with 1,200 chariots, 60,000 cavalrymen and an unnumbered host of infantrymen—Egyptians, Libyans, Sukkiim, and Ethiopians. 4 He quickly conquered Judah’s fortified cities and soon arrived at Jerusalem.
5 The prophet Shemaiah now met with Rehoboam and the Judean leaders from every part of the nation (they had fled to Jerusalem for safety) and told them, “The Lord says, ‘You have forsaken me, so I have forsaken you and abandoned you to Shishak.’”
6 Then the king and the leaders of Israel confessed their sins and exclaimed, “The Lord is right in doing this to us!”
7 And when the Lord saw them humble themselves, he sent Shemaiah to tell them, “Because you have humbled yourselves, I will not completely destroy you; some will escape. I will not use Shishak to pour out my anger upon Jerusalem. 8 But you must pay annual tribute to him. Then you will realize how much better it is to serve me than to serve him!”
9 So King Shishak of Egypt conquered Jerusalem and took away all the treasures of the Temple and of the palace, also all of Solomon’s gold shields. 10 King Rehoboam replaced them with bronze shields and committed them to the care of the captain of his bodyguard. 11 Whenever the king went to the Temple, the guards would carry them and afterwards return them to the armory. 12 When the king humbled himself, the Lord’s anger was turned aside and he didn’t send total destruction; in fact, even after Shishak’s invasion, the economy of Judah remained strong.
13 King Rehoboam reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city God had chosen as his residence after considering all the other cities of Israel. He had become king at the age of forty-one, and his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. 14 But he was an evil king, for he never did decide really to please the Lord. 15 The complete biography of Rehoboam is recorded in the histories written by Shemaiah the prophet and by Iddo the seer and in The Genealogical Register.
There were continual wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 16 When Rehoboam died he was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Abijah became the new king.
30 Now Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31 When the Jewish leaders who were at the house trying to console Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’ tomb to weep; so they followed her.
32 When Mary arrived where Jesus was, she fell down at his feet, saying, “Sir, if you had been here, my brother would still be alive.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jewish leaders wailing with her, he was moved with indignation and deeply troubled. 34 “Where is he buried?” he asked them.
They told him, “Come and see.” 35 Tears came to Jesus’ eyes.
36 “They were close friends,” the Jewish leaders said. “See how much he loved him.”
37-38 But some said, “This fellow healed a blind man—why couldn’t he keep Lazarus from dying?”
And again Jesus was moved with deep anger. Then they came to the tomb. It was a cave with a heavy stone rolled across its door.
39 “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.
But Martha, the dead man’s sister, said, “By now the smell will be terrible, for he has been dead four days.”
40 “But didn’t I tell you that you will see a wonderful miracle from God if you believe?” Jesus asked her.
41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 (You always hear me, of course, but I said it because of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.)” 43 Then he shouted, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 And Lazarus came—bound up in the gravecloth, his face muffled in a head swath. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”
45 And so at last many of the Jewish leaders who were with Mary and saw it happen, finally believed on him. 46 But some went away to the Pharisees and reported it to them.
47 Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened a council to discuss the situation.
“What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “For this man certainly does miracles. 48 If we let him alone the whole nation will follow him—and then the Roman army will come and kill us and take over the Jewish government.”
49 And one of them, Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, “You stupid idiots— 50 let this one man die for the people—why should the whole nation perish?”
51 This prophecy that Jesus should die for the entire nation came from Caiaphas in his position as High Priest—he didn’t think of it by himself, but was inspired to say it. 52 It was a prediction that Jesus’ death would not be for Israel only, but for all the children of God scattered around the world. 53 So from that time on the Jewish leaders began plotting Jesus’ death.
54 Jesus now stopped his public ministry and left Jerusalem; he went to the edge of the desert, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
55 The Passover, a Jewish holy day, was near, and many country people arrived in Jerusalem several days early so that they could go through the cleansing ceremony before the Passover began. 56 They wanted to see Jesus, and as they gossiped in the Temple, they asked each other, “What do you think? Will he come for the Passover?” 57 Meanwhile the chief priests and Pharisees had publicly announced that anyone seeing Jesus must report him immediately so that they could arrest him.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.