12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had ordered, saying, “Return to me on the third day.” 13 Then the king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the elders’ advice 14 and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy,* a but I will add to it; my father disciplined you with whips, but I, with barbed whips.”

15 The king did not listen to the people because the turn of events came from God,b in order that the Lord might carry out his word that he had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.c