1 Kings

Sentence Against Jeroboam

At that time, Abijah, son of Jeroboam, fell ill.

So the king told his wife: “Go, disguise yourself so no one may recognize you as Jeroboam’s wife. Go to Shiloh, where you will find Ahijah, the prophet who foretold that I would be king over these people.

Take ten loaves, a few cakes, and a honey jar. Enter his house, and he will tell you what will happen to the child.”

Jeroboam’s wife did as she was told and left for Shiloh. She entered the house of Ahijah, who was now so old that he could not see.

But the Lord had told Ahijah: “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to consult you about her sick son, and this is what you must tell her. She will be coming in disguise.”

And so when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps, as she entered the door, he said: “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why have you disguised yourself? I have been instructed to deliver unpleasant news to you.

Go, therefore; bring Jeroboam this message of the Lord, the God of Israel:

‘I made you rise from the midst of the people and established you as the leader of Israel. I took the kingdom from David’s family to give it to you. Yet you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me wholeheartedly, doing only what pleased me.

You have done worse than anyone before you. You have made me angry with your strange gods and the images you have made, and forsaken me.

Now, I shall bring disaster on the family of Jeroboam. I will cut off every male in Jeroboam’s line, whether slave or freeman in Israel, and I will wipe out the descendants of Jeroboam just as they wipe out the dung till all is gone.

He who dies in the city will be devoured by dogs; he who dies in the field, by the birds of the sky. So the Lord has spoken!’

Leave now, and go back home! As soon as you enter the city, the child will die.

All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He alone of Jeroboam’s line will be buried, for in him alone has the Lord, the God of Israel, found something good.

The Lord himself will raise for himself a king of Israel and destroy Jeroboam’s family.

The Lord will strike Israel like a reed tossed about in the water and root them out from this good land he gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the river Euphrates because they made him angry with the sacred poles they set up.

The Lord will scatter Israel because of the sins Jeroboam has committed and by which he dragged Israel into sin.”

So Jeroboam’s wife went home. On her arrival at Tirzah, and as soon as she crossed the threshold of her house, the child died.

The child was buried, and all Israel mourned over him just as the Lord had prophesied through his servant, Ahijah.

The rest of the acts of Jeroboam, his achievements in war and his reign, are recorded in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years. When he rested with his fathers, his son Nadab succeeded him as king.

Rehoboam, King of Judah

Rehoboam, son of Solomon, was forty-one when he began to reign over Judah. He reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem; the city the Lord chose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his Name there. His mother, Naamah, was an Ammonite.

The people of Judah did what displeased the Lord and, by their sins, angered him even more than their ancestors had done.

They also built for themselves high places, pillars, and sacred poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

They even had male cult prostitutes in their land. Judah followed all the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

In the fifth year of the reign of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, attacked Jerusalem

and looted everything, including the treasures of the Lord’s house and the royal palace. As he had taken the golden shields made under Solomon,

Rehoboam replaced them with brazen shields and entrusted them to the officers of the guard who watched at the door of the king’s palace.

Every time the king entered the Lord’s house, the guards took them out and returned them to the guardroom.

The rest of the events of Rehoboam’s reign, including his deeds, are all written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.

There was an ongoing war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

Then Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David. His mother, Naamah, was an Ammonite. His son Abijam succeeded him as king.