1 Kings - The Old Testament

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 of 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.

⁵ Now Ahijah could not see, his eyes were fixed with age, but Yahweh had told him, 'Jeroboam's wife is now on her way to ask you for a prophecy 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, God of Israel, says this: I raised you from the people and made you leader of my people Israel;

⁸ I tore the kingdom from the House of David and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart, doing only what I regard as right;

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 shall bring disaster on the House of Jeroboam, I shall wipe out every manjack of the family of Jeroboam, fettered or free in Israel, I shall 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 family will have a proper burial, for in him alone of the House of Jeroboam can Yahweh, God of Israel, find anything good.

¹⁴ Yahweh will set a king over Israel, who will put an end to the House of Jeroboam.

¹⁵ Yahweh will make Israel shake, till it quivers like a reed 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 which Jeroboam has committed and made Israel commit.'

¹⁷ Jeroboam's wife rose and left. She arrived at Tirzah, and when she crossed the threshold of the palace, the child was already dead.

¹⁸ They buried him, and all Israel mourned for 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, this is recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰ Jeroboam's reign lasted twenty-two years. Then he fell asleep 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 Ammonite.

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

²³ they 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 male sacred prostitutes in the country. He copied all the shameful practices of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed for the Israelites.

²⁵ And so it happened that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt advanced on Jerusalem

²⁶ and carried off all the treasures of the Temple of Yahweh and the treasures of the royal palace; he took everything away, including all the golden shields which Solomon had made.

²⁷ To replace those King Rehoboam made bronze shields, entrusting them to the commanders 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 this not recorded in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰ Warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam went on throughout the period.

³¹ When Rehoboam fell asleep with his ancestors, he was buried in the City of David; his son Abijam succeeded him.