7
"If you are kind to these people and try to please them by speaking gently with them," they replied, "they will be your servants forever."
8
But Rehoboam ignored the advice the elders gave him and instead sought the counsel of the young advisors who had grown up with him and now served him.
9
"What do you advise?" he asked them. "How should we respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the workload your father demanded from us'?"
10
The young people who had grown up with Rehoboam said to him,"This people said to you, ‘Your father made our workload heavy. Lighten it for us!' Now this is what you should say to them, ‘My baby finger is thicker than my father's waist!
11
So if my father made your workload heavy, I'll make it even heavier! If my father disciplined you with whips, I'll do it with scorpions!'"