5
Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days.” So the people departed.
6
Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How do you advise me to respond to these people?” he asked.
7
They replied, “If you will be kind to these people and please them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”
8
But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him.
9
He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to these people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”