1 Kings, Chapter 12:

Verses from 1 Kings, Chapter 12 of the book of 1 Kings of the Bible.

Israel revolts against Reboam

• 1. Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the Israelites gathered to make him king.
• 2. When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who was in Egypt fleeing from King Solomon, heard about this, he returned from there.
• 3. Then they summoned him, and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel went to meet Rehoboam and said:
• 4. “Your father imposed a heavy yoke on us, but now ease the hard work and heavy yoke that your father imposed on us, and we will serve you.”
• 5. Rehoboam replied, “Come back to me in three days.” And the people withdrew.
• 6. King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime and asked, “How do you advise me to respond to these people?”
• 7. They said to him, “If you are kind to these people, if you please them and give them a favorable response, they will always be your servants.”
• 8. But Rehoboam rejected the advice that the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him.
• 9. He asked them, “What advice do you give me? How should we respond to these people who ask me to ease the yoke that my father imposed on them?”
• 10. The young men who had grown up with him answered, “Tell these people who said to you, 'Your father laid a heavy yoke on us, but you will make it lighter; tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loin.
• 11. My father burdened them with a heavy yoke; I will burden you even more. My father punished them with whips; I will punish them with scorpions' “.
• 12. Three days later, Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had commanded: “Return to me in three days.”
• 13. The king answered them harshly. Rejected the advice of the elders
• 14. and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying: “My father imposed a heavy yoke on you; I will make it even heavier. My father punished them with whips; I will punish them with scorpions!”
• 15. The king did not listen to the people, for this change in events was from the Lord, so that the word that the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, through the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh, would be fulfilled.
• 16. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What do we have in common with David? What do we have in common with the son of Jesse? Return to your tents, O Israel! Now take care of your own house, O David!” And so the people of Israel withdrew to their homes.
• 17. But as for the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam remained king over them.
• 18. King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, responsible for forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. Then the king managed to escape in his chariot and flee to Jerusalem.
• 19. In this way Israel rebelled against the dynasty of David, and remains so to this day.
• 20. When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to a meeting and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David.
• 21. When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he summoned one hundred and eighty thousand men of war, from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to fight against Israel and recover the kingdom.
• 22. But the word of God came to Shemaiah, a man of God, saying:
• 23. “Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people:
• 24. This is what the Lord says: Do not go up to fight against your brothers the Israelites. Go home, all of you, for I did this.” And they obeyed the word of the Lord and returned home, as the Lord had commanded.

The golden calves at Bethel and Dan

• 25. Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. Then he went and fortified Peniel.
• 26. Jeroboam thought to himself, “Now the kingdom can return to the dynasty of David.
• 27. If these people continue to go up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord, their hearts will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”
• 28. After consulting the people, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “You have come far enough to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.”
• 29. One of the calves he placed in Bethel, and the other in Dan.
• 30. This became a sin, as the people went to Dan to worship the calf.
• 31. Jeroboam also built idolatrous altars in high places and appointed priests from among the people, who were not Levites.
• 32. Jeroboam instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, similar to the festival celebrated in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. He did this at Bethel, sacrificing the calves he had made. Also in Bethel he established priests at the idolatrous altars he had built.
• 33. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month he chose, Jeroboam offered sacrifices on the altar he had built in Bethel. He ordered a feast for the Israelites and went up to the altar to burn incense.

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