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Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days.” So the people went away.
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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.
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They replied, “If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
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But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.
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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’?”
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The young men who had grown up with him replied, “The people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.
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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.’ ”
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Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.”
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The king answered them harshly. Rejecting the advice of the elders,
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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.”