1 Kings 12:6-11 - Rehoboam Seeks Counsel To Respond

⁶ Then King Rehoboam consulted with the old men who had been {serving} before Solomon his father when he was alive, saying, "How [are] you advising [me] {to answer this people}?"

⁷ They said to him, "If you will be a servant today to this people, then you will serve them; and if you answer them and speak good words to them, they will always be your servants."

⁸ But he rejected the advice of the old men, which they gave him, and he consulted with the youngsters who had grown up with him, who were {serving} before him. ⁹ He said to them, "What [are] you advising that we should reply to this people who spoke to me by saying, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us.'"

¹⁰ Then the youngsters who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you: 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten [it] for us,' you shall say to them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins. ¹¹ So then, my father loaded a heavy yoke on all of you, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions!'"