10Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the Israelites had gone to make him king. ²Jeroboam 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. ³After 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.”

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

⁶King Rehoboam asked the elders who had advised Solomon during his lifetime, “How do you think I should answer these people?”

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

⁸But Rehoboam rejected this advice. Instead, he asked the young men who had grown up with him and who served as his advisers. ⁹Rehoboam 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’?”

¹⁰The 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. ¹¹He 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.’ ”

¹²Rehoboam had told the people, “Come back to me in three days.” So after three days Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam. ¹³King Rehoboam spoke cruel words to them, because he had rejected the advice of the elders. ¹⁴He 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.” ¹⁵So 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.

¹⁶When all the Israelites saw that the king refused to listen to them, they said to the king,

“We have no share in David!

We have no part in the son of Jesse!

People of Israel, let’s go to our own homes!

Let David’s son rule his own people.”

So all the Israelites went home. ¹⁷But Rehoboam still ruled over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.

¹⁸Adoniram 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. ¹⁹Since then, Israel has been against the family of David.

11When 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. ²But 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.

Rehoboam Makes Judah Strong

⁵Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem and built strong cities in Judah to defend it. ⁶He built up the cities of Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, ⁷Beth Zur, Soco, Adullam, ⁸Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, ⁹Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, ¹⁰Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron. These were strong, walled cities in Judah and Benjamin. ¹¹When Rehoboam made those cities strong, he put commanders and supplies of food, oil, and wine in them. ¹²Also, 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.

¹³The priests and the Levites from all over Israel joined Rehoboam. ¹⁴The 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. ¹⁵Jeroboam chose his own priests for the places of worship and for the goat and calf idols he had made. ¹⁶There 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 ancestors. ¹⁷These 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.

Rehoboam’s Family

¹⁸Rehoboam married Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth and Abihail. Jerimoth was David’s son, and Abihail was the daughter of Eliab, Jesse’s son. ¹⁹Mahalath gave Rehoboam these sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. ²⁰Then Rehoboam married Absalom’s daughter Maacah, and she gave Rehoboam these children: Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. ²¹Rehoboam 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.

²²Rehoboam chose Abijah son of Maacah to be the leader of his own brothers, because he planned to make Abijah king. ²³Rehoboam 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.

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