12
And he put shields and spears in all the cities and made them very strong. So he held Judah and Benjamin.
Priests and Levites Come to Jerusalem
13 And the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel presented themselves to him from all places where they lived.
14
For the Levites left
1their common lands and their holdings and came to Judah and Jerusalem,
2because Jeroboam and his sons cast them out from serving as priests of the LORD,
15
and he appointed his own
3priests for the high places and for the goat idols and for
4the calves that he had made.
16
5And those who had set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came after them from all the tribes of Israel to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD, the God of their fathers.
17
6They strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and for three years they made Rehoboam the son of Solomon secure, for they walked for three years in the way of David and Solomon.
Rehoboam's Family
18 Rehoboam took as wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David, and of Abihail the daughter of
7Eliab the son of Jesse,
19
and she bore him sons, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.
20
After her he took
8Maacah the daughter of Absalom, who bore him
9Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.
21
Rehoboam loved Maacah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and concubines (he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters).
22
10And Rehoboam appointed
11Abijah the son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.