³So they summoned him. Then Jeroboam and all Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam: ⁴“Your father made our yoke harsh. Therefore, lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵Rehoboam replied, “Return to me in three days.” So the people left.

⁶Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had attended his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to this people?”

⁷They replied, “If you will be kind to this people and please them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”

⁸But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him, and he consulted with the young men who had grown up with him, the ones attending him. ⁹He asked them, “What message do you advise we send back to this people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

¹⁰Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist! ¹¹Now therefore, my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I, with barbed whips.’ ”

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