Old/New Testament
Rehoboam King of Judah
10 Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.
2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, heard about this, he returned from Egypt, 3 and the people then sent for Jeroboam.
Jeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said, 4 “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke that he laid on us, and we will serve you.”
5 Rehoboam said to them, “Return to me in three days.” So the people left.
6 King Rehoboam asked for advice from the old men[a] who had served his father Solomon while he was alive: “How would you advise me to respond to these people?”
7 They said to him, “If you are good to these people and respond favorably to their request, and you speak accommodating words to them, they will be your servants forever.”
8 But Rehoboam did not follow the advice the old men gave him. Instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who were serving as his advisors. 9 He said to them, “How would you advise me to respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father laid upon us’?”
10 The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy. You make it light for us.’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.[b] 11 My father imposed a heavy yoke on you. I will add to your yoke. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.’”[c]
12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed: “Come back to me on the third day.”
13 The king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the advice of the old men.
14 Instead, he spoke to them as the young men had advised: “My father made your yoke heavy. I will add to it. My father punished you with whips. I will punish you with scorpions.”
15 The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events was from God, so that the Lord would keep his word, as he had spoken it to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah from Shiloh.
16 When all Israel saw[d] that the king did not listen to them, they responded to the king:
What share do we have in David?
No inheritance with the son of Jesse!
To your tents, Israel!
Now, look after your own house, David!
So all Israel went to their tents.[e]
17 Rehoboam continued to rule over the people of Israel who were living in the cities of Judah.
18 King Rehoboam sent Hadoram,[f] who was in charge of the forced labor, but the people of Israel stoned Hadoram to death. King Rehoboam, however, was able to get into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.
19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David until this day.
(1 Kings 12:21-24)
11 When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand specially chosen[g] soldiers, to wage war against Israel in order to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam.
2 But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God: 3 “Say the following to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin: 4 This is what the Lord says. Do not attack and do not fight against your brother Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this turn of events is from me.”
They listened to the words of the Lord and refrained from going against Jeroboam.
Rehoboam Builds Cities for Defense
5 Rehoboam resided in Jerusalem. He built cities for defense in Judah. 6 He built Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, 7 Beth Zur, Soko, Adullam, 8 Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, 9 Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, 10 Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron. These are fortified cities in Judah and in Benjamin. 11 He built up their fortifications. He placed commanders in them and stores of food, oil, and wine. 12 In each and every city he placed shields and spears and made the cities very strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.
Faithful Priests and People Come to Rehoboam
13 The priests and Levites who were living in Israel left the land allotted to them and took their stand with Rehoboam. 14 The Levites left their pasturelands and their holdings. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons had removed them from their ministry as priests of the Lord.
15 Jeroboam had appointed his own priests for the high places and for the goats and calves he had made.
16 From all the tribes of Israel, those people who set their hearts on seeking the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the priests and Levites and came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their fathers. 17 They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Rehoboam son of Solomon secure for three years, because for those three years they walked in the way of David and Solomon.
The Family of Rehoboam
18 Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, who was the daughter[h] of David’s son Jerimoth and of Abihail, the daughter of Jesse’s son Eliab. 19 She gave birth to these sons for him: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.
20 In addition to her, he took Ma’akah, the granddaughter[i] of Absalom. She gave birth for him to Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.
21 Rehoboam loved Ma’akah, the granddaughter of Absalom, more than any of his other wives and concubines. He took eighteen wives and sixty concubines and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.
22 Rehoboam appointed Abijah, the son of Ma’akah, as crown prince among his brothers, because he was going to make him king. 23 Rehoboam acted wisely and dispersed his sons throughout all the areas of Judah and Benjamin, in all the fortified cities. He provided them with abundant provisions and obtained many wives for them.
Shishak Attacks Jerusalem
12 When Rehoboam had established his rule as king and had become strong, he abandoned the law of the Lord. All Israel went along with him.
2 In the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because Israel had been unfaithful to the Lord. 3 He came with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand charioteers.[j] The forces that came with him from Egypt, including Libyans, Sukkites, and Cushites, could not be counted. 4 He captured the fortified cities of Judah and advanced as far as Jerusalem.
5 Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the officials of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak. He said to them, “This is what the Lord says. You abandoned me, so now I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.”
6 Then the officials of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is righteous.”
7 When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying: “They have humbled themselves, so I will not destroy them. I will give them deliverance in a little while. My anger will not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. 8 However, they will become his servants. They will learn what it is to serve me and to serve the kingdoms of the foreign lands.”
9 Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. He took away the treasures from the house of the Lord and the treasures from the house of the king. He took everything, including the gold shields that Solomon had made. 10 King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and he entrusted them to the captains of the guard who were keeping watch at the entrance of the king’s palace. 11 Whenever the king went to the House of the Lord, the guards would go along and carry the shields. Then they would return them to the guardroom.[k]
12 Because he humbled himself, the anger of the Lord turned from him. He did not completely destroy them, so conditions were good in Judah.[l]
The Closing Summary of Rehoboam’s Reign
13 King Rehoboam strengthened his position in Jerusalem and ruled as king. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and for seventeen years he ruled as king in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen from among all the tribes of Israel to put his Name there. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Na’amah the Ammonite.
14 He did evil, because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.
15 The acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the annals of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer, which deal with genealogy? Rehoboam and Jeroboam waged war with each other throughout all their days.
16 Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. His son Abijah ruled as king in his place.
30 Now Jesus had not yet gone into the village, but was still where Martha met him. 31 The Jews who were with Mary in the house consoling her saw that she got up quickly and left. So they followed her, supposing[a] she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.
34 He asked, “Where have you laid him?”
They told him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus was deeply moved again as he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Take away the stone,” he said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, because it has been four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41 So they took away the stone.
Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 The man who had died came out with his feet and his hands bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, “Loose him and let him go.”
The Plot
45 Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They asked, “What are we going to do, because this man is doing many miraculous signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50 You do not even consider that it is better for us[b] that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51 He did not say this on his own, but, as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not only for that nation, but also in order to gather into one the scattered children of God.
53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him. 54 Therefore Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew into a region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. And he stayed there with his disciples.
55 The Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple area, “What do you think? He certainly won’t come to the Festival, will he?” 57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should report it so that they could arrest Jesus.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.