2 Chronicles 10; 2 Chronicles 11; 2 Chronicles 12; John 11:30-57

1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the people of northern Israel had gathered to make him king.

2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had gone to Egypt to escape from King Solomon, heard this news, he returned home.

3 The people of the northern tribes sent for him, and they all went together to Rehoboam and said to him,

4 "Your father placed heavy burdens on us. If you make these burdens lighter and make life easier for us, we will be your loyal subjects."

5 Rehoboam replied, "Give me three days to consider the matter. Then come back." So the people left.

6 King Rehoboam consulted the older men who had served as his father Solomon's advisers. "What answer do you advise me to give these people?" he asked.

7 They replied, "If you are kind to these people and try to please them by giving a considerate answer, they will always serve you loyally."

8 But he ignored the advice of the older men and went instead to the young men who had grown up with him and who were now his advisers.

9 "What do you advise me to do?" he asked. "What shall I say to the people who are asking me to make their burdens lighter?"

10 They replied, "This is what you should tell them: "My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.'

11 Tell them, "My father placed heavy burdens on you; I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I'll flog you with bullwhips!' "

12 Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to King Rehoboam, as he had instructed them.

13 The king ignored the advice of the older men and spoke harshly to the people,

14 as the younger men had advised. He said, "My father placed heavy burdens on you; I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I'll flog you with bullwhips!"

15 It was the will of the Lord God to bring about what he had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh. This is why the king did not pay any attention to the people.

16 When the people saw that the king would not listen to them, they shouted, "Down with David and his family! What have they ever done for us? People of Israel, let's go home! Let Rehoboam look out for himself!" So the people of Israel rebelled,

17 leaving Rehoboam as king only of the people who lived in the territory of Judah.

18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, who was in charge of the forced labor, to go to the Israelites, but they stoned him to death. At this, Rehoboam hurriedly got in his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem.

19 Ever since that time the people of the northern kingdom of Israel have been in rebellion against the dynasty of David.

1 When King Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he called together 180,000 of the best soldiers from the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. He intended to go to war and restore his control over the northern tribes of Israel.

2 But the Lord told the prophet Shemaiah

3 to give this message to King Rehoboam and to all the people of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin:

4 "Do not attack your own relatives. Go home, all of you. What has happened is my will." They obeyed the Lord's command and did not go to fight Jeroboam.

5 Rehoboam remained in Jerusalem and had fortifications built for the following cities of Judah and Benjamin:

6 Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

7 Bethzur, Soco, Adullam,

8 Gath, Mareshah, Ziph,

9 Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah,

10 Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron.

11 He had them strongly fortified and appointed a commander for each of them, and in each one he placed supplies of food, olive oil, and wine,

12 and also shields and spears. In this way he kept Judah and Benjamin under his control.

13 From all the territory of Israel priests and Levites came south to Judah.

14 The Levites abandoned their pastures and other land and moved to Judah and Jerusalem, because King Jeroboam of Israel and his successors would not let them serve as priests of the Lord.

15 Jeroboam appointed priests of his own to serve at the pagan places of worship and to worship demons and the idols he made in the form of bull-calves.

16 From all the tribes of Israel people who sincerely wanted to worship the Lord, the God of Israel, followed the Levites to Jerusalem, so that they could offer sacrifices to the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

17 This strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and for three years they supported Rehoboam son of Solomon and lived as they had under the rule of King David and King Solomon.

18 Rehoboam married Mahalath, whose father was Jerimoth son of David and whose mother was Abihail, the daughter of Eliab and granddaughter of Jesse.

19 They had three sons, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

20 Later he married Maacah, the daughter of Absalom, and they had four sons: Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.

21 In all, Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Of all his wives and concubines he loved Maacah best,

22 and he favored her son Abijah over all his other children, choosing him as the one to succeed him as king.

23 Rehoboam wisely assigned responsibilities to his sons and stationed them throughout Judah and Benjamin in the fortified cities. He provided generously for them and also secured many wives for them.

1 As soon as Rehoboam had established his authority as king, he and all his people abandoned the Law of the Lord.

2 In the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign their disloyalty to the Lord was punished. King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem

3 with an army of twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand cavalry, and more soldiers than could be counted, including Libyan, Sukkite, and Ethiopian troops.

4 He captured the fortified cities of Judah and advanced as far as Jerusalem.

5 Shemaiah the prophet went to King Rehoboam and the Judean leaders who had gathered in Jerusalem to escape Shishak. He said to them, "This is the Lord's message to you: "You have abandoned me, so now I have abandoned you to Shishak.' "

6 The king and the leaders admitted that they had sinned, and they said, "What the Lord is doing is just."

7 When the Lord saw this, he spoke again to Shemaiah and said to him, "Because they admit their sin, I will not destroy them. But when Shishak attacks, they will barely survive. Jerusalem will not feel the full force of my anger,

8 but Shishak will conquer them, and they will learn the difference between serving me and serving earthly rulers."

9 King Shishak came to Jerusalem and took the treasures from the Temple and from the palace. He took everything, including the gold shields that King Solomon had made.

10 To replace them, Rehoboam made bronze shields and entrusted them to the officers responsible for guarding the palace gates.

11 Every time the king went to the Temple, the guards carried the shields and then returned them to the guardroom.

12 Because he submitted to the Lord, the Lord's anger did not completely destroy him, and things went well for Judah.

13 Rehoboam ruled in Jerusalem and increased his power as king. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen from all the territory of Israel as the place where he was to be worshiped. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah, from the land of Ammon.

14 He did what was evil, because he did not try to find the Lord's will.

15 Rehoboam's acts from beginning to end and his family records are found in [The History of Shemaiah the Prophet] and [The History of Iddo the Prophet.] Rehoboam and Jeroboam were constantly at war with each other.

16 Rehoboam died and was buried in the royal tombs in David's City and his son Abijah succeeded him as king.

30 (Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.)

31 The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

32 Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. "Lord," she said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died!"

33 Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved.

34 "Where have you buried him?" he asked them. "Come and see, Lord," they answered.

35 Jesus wept.

36 "See how much he loved him!" the people said.

37 But some of them said, "He gave sight to the blind man, didn't he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?"

38 Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance.

39 "Take the stone away!" Jesus ordered. Martha, the dead man's sister, answered, "There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!"

40 Jesus said to her, "Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed?"

41 They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, "I thank you, Father, that you listen to me.

42 I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me."

43 After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

44 He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. "Untie him," Jesus told them, "and let him go."

45 Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him.

46 But some of them returned to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

47 So the Pharisees and the chief priests met with the Council and said, "What shall we do? Look at all the miracles this man is performing!

48 If we let him go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Roman authorities will take action and destroy our Temple and our nation!"

49 One of them, named Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, "What fools you are!

50 Don't you realize that it is better for you to have one man die for the people, instead of having the whole nation destroyed?"

51 Actually, he did not say this of his own accord; rather, as he was High Priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish people,

52 and not only for them, but also to bring together into one body all the scattered people of God.

53 From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus.

54 So Jesus did not travel openly in Judea, but left and went to a place near the desert, to a town named Ephraim, where he stayed with the disciples.

55 The time for the Passover Festival was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to perform the ritual of purification before the festival.

56 They were looking for Jesus, and as they gathered in the Temple, they asked one another, "What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?"

57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he must report it, so that they could arrest him.