2 Chronicles 10; 2 Chronicles 11; 2 Chronicles 12

1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the Israelites had gone to make him king.

2 Jeroboam son of Nebat was in Egypt, where he had gone to escape from King Solomon. When Jeroboam heard about Rehoboam being made king, he returned from Egypt.

3 After the people sent for him, he and the people went to Rehoboam and said to him,

4 "Your father forced us to work very hard. Now, make it easier for us, and don't make us work as he did. Then we will serve you."

5 Rehoboam answered, "Come back to me in three days." So the people left.

6 King Rehoboam asked the older leaders who had advised Solomon during his lifetime, "How do you think I should answer these people?"

7 They answered, "Be kind to these people. If you please them and give them a kind answer, they will serve you always."

8 But Rehoboam rejected this advice. Instead, he asked the young men who had grown up with him and who served as his advisers.

9 Rehoboam asked them, "What is your advice? How should we answer these people who said, 'Don't make us work as hard as your father did'?"

10 The young men who had grown up with him answered, "The people said to you, 'Your father forced us to work very hard. Now make our work easier.' You should tell them, 'My little finger is bigger than my father's legs.

11 He forced you to work hard, but I will make you work even harder. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with whips that have sharp points.'"

12 Rehoboam had told the people, "Come back to me in three days." So after three days Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam.

13 King Rehoboam spoke cruel words to them, because he had rejected the advice of the older leaders.

14 He followed the advice of the young men and said, "My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work even harder. My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with whips that have sharp points."

15 So the king did not listen to the people. God caused this to happen so that the Lord could keep the promise he had made to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah, a prophet from Shiloh.

16 When all the Israelites saw that the king refused to listen to them, they said to the king, "We have no share in David! People of Israel, let's go to our own homes! Let David's son rule his own people." So all the Israelites went home.

17 But Rehoboam still ruled over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.

18 Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. When Rehoboam sent him to the people, they threw stones at him until he died. But King Rehoboam ran to his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem.

19 Since then, Israel has been against the family of David.

1 When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he gathered one hundred eighty thousand of the best soldiers from Judah and Benjamin. He wanted to fight Israel to take back his kingdom.

2 But the Lord spoke his word to Shemaiah, a man of God, saying,

3 "Speak to Solomon's son Rehoboam, the king of Judah, and to all the Israelites living in Judah and Benjamin. Say to them,

4 'The Lord says you must not go to war against your brothers. Every one of you should go home, because I made all these things happen.'" So they obeyed the Lord's command and turned back and did not attack Jeroboam.

5 Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem and built strong cities in Judah to defend it.

6 He built up the cities of Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,

7 Beth Zur, Soco, Adullam,

8 Gath, Mareshah, Ziph,

9 Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah,

10 Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron. These were strong, walled cities in Judah and Benjamin.

11 When Rehoboam made those cities strong, he put commanders and supplies of food, oil, and wine in them.

12 Also, Rehoboam put shields and spears in all the cities and made them very strong. Rehoboam kept the people of Judah and Benjamin under his control.

13 The priests and the Levites from all over Israel joined Rehoboam.

14 The Levites even left their pasturelands and property and came to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons refused to let them serve as priests to the Lord.

15 Jeroboam chose his own priests for the places of worship and for the goat and calf idols he had made.

16 There were people from all the tribes of Israel who wanted to obey the Lord, the God of Israel. So they went to Jerusalem with the Levites to sacrifice to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

17 These people made the kingdom of Judah strong, and they supported Solomon's son Rehoboam for three years. During this time they lived the way David and Solomon had lived.

18 Rehoboam married Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth and Abihail. Jerimoth was David's son, and Abihail was the daughter of Eliab, Jesse's son.

19 Mahalath gave Rehoboam these sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

20 Then Rehoboam married Absalom's daughter Maacah, and she gave Rehoboam these children: Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.

21 Rehoboam loved Maacah more than his other wives and slave women. Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty slave women and was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

22 Rehoboam chose Abijah son of Maacah to be the leader of his own brothers, because he planned to make Abijah king.

23 Rehoboam acted wisely. He spread his sons through all the areas of Judah and Benjamin, sending them to every strong, walled city. He gave plenty of supplies to his sons, and he also found wives for them.

1 After Rehoboam's kingdom was set up and he became strong, he and the people of Judah stopped obeying the teachings of the Lord.

2 During the fifth year Rehoboam was king, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, because Rehoboam and the people were unfaithful to the Lord.

3 Shishak had twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen. He brought troops of Libyans, Sukkites, and Cushites from Egypt with him, so many they couldn't be counted.

4 Shishak captured the strong, walled cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem.

5 Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered in Jerusalem because they were afraid of Shishak. Shemaiah said to them, "This is what the Lord says: 'You have left me, so now I will leave you to face Shishak alone.'"

6 Then the leaders of Judah and King Rehoboam were sorry for what they had done. They said, "The Lord does what is right."

7 When the Lord saw they were sorry for what they had done, the Lord spoke his word to Shemaiah, saying, "The king and the leaders are sorry. So I will not destroy them but will save them soon. I will not use Shishak to punish Jerusalem in my anger.

8 But the people of Jerusalem will become Shishak's servants so they may learn that serving me is different than serving the kings of other nations."

9 Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and took the treasures from the Temple of the Lord and the king's palace. He took everything, even the gold shields Solomon had made.

10 So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to take their place and gave them to the commanders of the guards for the palace gates.

11 Whenever the king went to the Temple of the Lord, the guards went with him, carrying the shields. Later, they would put them back in the guardroom.

12 When Rehoboam was sorry for what he had done, the Lord held his anger back and did not fully destroy Rehoboam. There was some good in Judah.

13 King Rehoboam made himself a strong king in Jerusalem. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was king in Jerusalem for seventeen years. Jerusalem is the city that the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel in which he was to be worshiped. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah from the country of Ammon.

14 Rehoboam did evil because he did not want to obey the Lord.

15 The things Rehoboam did as king, from the beginning to the end, are written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer, in the family histories. There were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the time they ruled.

16 Rehoboam died and was buried in Jerusalem, and his son Abijah became king in his place.