1 Kings 14:21–31

The Death of Rehoboam

²¹Solomon’s son Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king of Judah. His mother was Naamah from Ammon. Rehoboam ruled in Jerusalem for seventeen years. (The Lord had chosen that city from all the land of Israel as the place where he would be worshiped.)

²²The people of Judah did what the Lord said was wrong. Their sins made the Lord very angry, even more angry than he had been at their ancestors. ²³The people built stone pillars and places to worship gods and Asherah idols on every high hill and under every green tree. ²⁴There were even male prostitutes in the land. They acted like the people who had lived in the land before the Israelites. They had done many evil things, and God had taken the land away from them.

²⁵During the fifth year Rehoboam was king, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. ²⁶He took the treasures from the Temple of the Lord and the king’s palace. He took everything, even the gold shields Solomon had made. ²⁷So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to put in their place and gave them to the commanders of the guards for the palace gates. ²⁸Whenever the king went to the Temple of the Lord, the guards carried the shields. Later, they would put them back in the guardroom.

²⁹Everything else King Rehoboam did is written in the book of the history of the kings of Judah. ³⁰There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam the whole time. ³¹Rehoboam, son of Naamah from Ammon, died and was buried with his ancestors in Jerusalem, and his son Abijam ⁿ became king in his place.