1    ^noteRehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. 2   When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, heard of it, he remained ^note there, having taken refuge there to escape King Solomon. 3   They now recalled him, and he and all the assembly of Israel came to Rehoboam and said, 4   ‘Your father laid a cruel yoke upon us; but if you will now lighten the cruel slavery he imposed

The divided kingdom on us and the heavy yoke he laid on us, we will serve you.’ 5   ‘Give me three days,’ he said, ‘and come back again.’ So the people went away. 6   King Rehoboam then consulted the elders who had been in attendance on his father Solomon while he lived: ‘What answer do you advise me to give to this people?’ 7   And they said, ‘If today you are willing to serve this people, show yourself their servant now and speak kindly to them, and they will be your servants ever after.’ 8   But he rejected the advice which the elders gave him. He next consulted those who had grown up with him, 9   the young men in attendance, and asked them, ‘What answer do you advise me to give to this people's request that I should lighten the yoke which my father laid on them?’ 10   The young men replied, ‘Give this answer to the people who say that your father made their yoke heavy and ask you to lighten it; tell them: “My little finger is thicker than my father's loins. 11   My father laid a heavy yoke on you; I will make it heavier. My father used the whip on you; but I will use the lash.”’ 12   Jeroboam and the people all came back to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had ordered. 13   And the king gave them a harsh answer. He 14   rejected the advice which the elders had given him and spoke to the people as the young men had advised: ‘My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it heavier. My father used the whip on you; but I will use the lash.’ 15   So the king would not listen to the people; for the Lord had given this turn to the affair, in order that the word he had spoken by Ahijah of Shiloh to Jeroboam son of Nebat might be fulfilled.

16   When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, they answered:

  What share have we in David?
    We have no lot in the son of Jesse.
  Away to your homes, O Israel;
    now see to your own house, David.

17   So Israel went to their homes, and Rehoboam ruled over those Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah.

18   Then King Rehoboam sent out Adoram, the commander of the forced levies, but the Israelites stoned him to death; thereupon King Rehoboam mounted his chariot in haste and fled to Jerusalem. 19   From that day to this, the whole of Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David.

20   When the men of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over the whole of Israel. The tribe of Judah alone followed the house of David.

21    ^noteWhen Rehoboam reached Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, the tribe of Benjamin also, a hundred and eighty thousand chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel and recover his

The divided kingdom kingdom. 22   But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: ‘Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, 23   king of Judah, and to the house of Judah and to Benjamin and the rest of the people, 24   “This is the word of the Lord: You shall not go up to make war on your kinsmen the Israelites. Return to your homes, for this is my will.”’ So they listened to the word of the Lord and returned home, as the Lord had told them.

25   Then Jeroboam rebuilt Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim and took up residence there; from there he went out and built Penuel. 26   ‘As things now stand,’ he said to himself, ‘the kingdom will revert to the house of David. 27   If this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, it will revive their allegiance to their lord Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.’ 28   After giving thought to the matter he made two calves of gold and said to the people, ‘It is too much trouble for you to go up to Jerusalem; here are your gods, Israel, that brought you up from Egypt.’ 29   One he set up at Bethel and the other he put at Dan, 30   and this thing became a sin in Israel; the people went to Bethel to worship the one, and ^note all the way to Dan to worship the other. 31   He set up shrines on the hill-tops also and appointed priests from every class of the people, who did not belong to the Levites. 32   He instituted a pilgrim-feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like that in Judah, and he offered sacrifices upon the altar. This he did at Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made and compelling the priests of the hill-shrines, which he had set up, to serve at Bethel. 33   So he went up to the altar that he had made at Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month; there, in a month of his own choosing, he instituted for the Israelites a pilgrim-feast and himself went up to the altar to burn the sacrifice.

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