First Book of Kings 14

¹ At that time Abijah, Jeroboam’s son, fell sick,

² and Jeroboam said to his wife, ‘Come, please disguise yourself so that no one will recognise you as Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh; the prophet Ahijah is there, the man who said I was to be king over this people.

³ Go to him, and take ten loaves and some savoury food and a jar of honey; he will tell you what will happen to the child.’

⁴ Jeroboam’s wife did this: she set out, went to Shiloh and came to Ahijah’s house. Now Ahijah could not see, his eyes were dimmed with age,

⁵ but Yahweh had told him, ‘Jeroboam’s wife is now on her way to ask you for an oracle about her son, as he is sick. You will tell her such and such. When she comes, she will pretend to be some other woman.’

⁶ So when Ahijah heard her footsteps at the door, he called, ‘Come in, wife of Jeroboam; why pretend to be someone else? I have bad news for you.

⁷ Go and tell Jeroboam, “Yahweh says this, the God of Israel: I raised you from the people and made you leader of my people Israel; I tore the kingdom from the House of David and gave it to you.

⁸ But you have not been like my servant David who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart doing only what is right in my eyes;

⁹ you have done more evil than all your predecessors, you have gone and made yourself other gods, idols of cast metal, provoking my anger, and you have turned your back on me.

¹⁰ For this I will bring disaster on the House of Jeroboam, I will wipe out every male belonging to the family of Jeroboam, fettered or free in Israel, I will sweep away the House of Jeroboam as a man sweeps dung away till none is left.

¹¹ Those of Jeroboam’s family who die in the city, the dogs will eat; and those who die in the open country, the birds of the air will eat, for Yahweh has spoken.”

¹² Now get up and go home; at the moment your feet enter the town, the child will die.

¹³ All Israel will mourn for him, and bury him; and he alone of Jeroboam’s household will go to the tomb, for it is in him alone of the House of Jeroboam that anything pleasing to Yahweh, the God of Israel, is found.

¹⁴ Yahweh will raise up a king for himself over Israel to wipe out the House of Jeroboam.

¹⁵ Yahweh will make Israel shake as a reed shakes in the water, he will uproot Israel from this prosperous land which he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the river for provoking Yahweh to anger by making their sacred poles.

¹⁶ He will abandon Israel for the sins Jeroboam has committed and made Israel commit.’

¹⁷ Jeroboam’s wife rose and left. She arrived at Tirzah[*a] and when she crossed the threshold of the house, the child was already dead.

¹⁸ They buried him, and all Israel mourned him, just as Yahweh had foretold through his servant Ahijah the prophet.

¹⁹ The rest of the history of Jeroboam, what wars he waged, how he governed, these may be found recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰ Jeroboam’s reign lasted twenty two years; then he slept with his ancestors; his son Nadab succeeded him.

²¹ In Judah Rehoboam son of Solomon became king; he was forty-one years old when he came to the throne and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which Yahweh had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to give his name a home there. His mother’s name was Naamah, the Ammonitess.

²² He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, arousing his resentment more than his ancestors did by all the sins they committed,

²³ they who had built themselves high places, and had set up pillars and sacred poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

²⁴ There were even men in the country who were sacred prostitutes. He copied all the shameful practices of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed for the sons of Israel.

²⁵ In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak the king of Egypt marched on Jerusalem.

²⁶ He took all the treasures from the Temple of Yahweh and the treasures from the royal palace, he took everything, including all the golden shields that Solomon had made;

²⁷ in place of them King Rehoboam had bronze shields made, entrusting them to the care of the officers of the guard who guarded the king’s palace gate.

²⁸ Whenever the king went to the Temple of Yahweh, the guards would carry them, returning them to the guardroom afterwards.

²⁹ The rest of the history of Rehoboam, his entire career, is not all this recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰ Rehoboam and Jeroboam were at war with each other throughout their reigns.

³¹ Then Rehoboam slept with his ancestors and was buried in the Citadel of David; his son Abijam succeeded him.