1 Kings
12
- Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites
had gone there to make him king.
- When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he
was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from
Egypt.
- So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the
whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him:
- "Your father put a heavy yoke on us,
but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will
serve you."
- Rehoboam answered, "Go away for three
days and then come back to me." So the people went away.
- Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who
had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise
me to answer these people?" he asked.
- They replied, "If today you will be
a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer,
they will always be your servants."
- But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders
gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving
him.
- He asked them, "What is your advice?
How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father
put on us' ?"
- The young men who had grown up with him replied,
"Tell these people who have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke
on us, but make our yoke lighter'--tell them, 'My little finger is thicker
than my father's waist.
- My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will
make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you
with scorpions.'"
- Three days later Jeroboam and all the people
returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, "Come back to me in three
days."
- The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting
the advice given him by the elders,
- he followed the advice of the young men and
said, "My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My
father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions."
- So the king did not listen to the people,
for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had
spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
- When all Israel saw that the king refused
to listen to them, they answered the king: "What share do we have in
David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your
own house, O David!" So the Israelites went home.
- But as for the Israelites who were living
in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.
- King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was
in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam,
however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem.
- So Israel has been in rebellion against the
house of David to this day.
- When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam
had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over
all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.
- When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered
the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin -- a hundred and eighty
thousand fighting men--to make war against the house of Israel and to regain
the kingdom for Rehoboam son of Solomon.
- But this word of God came to Shemaiah the
man of God:
- "Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king
of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the
people,
- 'This is what the LORD says: Do not go up
to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you,
for this is my doing.'" So they obeyed the word of the LORD and went
home again, as the LORD had ordered.
- Then Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill
country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built up Peniel.
- Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom
will now likely revert to the house of David.
- If these people go up to offer sacrifices
at the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance
to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King
Rehoboam."
- After seeking advice, the king made two golden
calves. He said to the people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem.
Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."
- One he set up in Bethel, and the other in
Dan.
- And this thing became a sin; the people went
even as far as Dan to worship the one there.
- Jeroboam built shrines on high places and
appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites.
- He instituted a festival on the fifteenth
day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices
on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made.
And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made.
- On the fifteenth day of the eighth month,
a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built
at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to
the altar to make offerings.
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