all of them from nations that the LORD had ordered the Israelis, "You are not to associate with them and they are not to associate with you, because they will most certainly turn your affections away to follow their gods." Solomon became deeply attached to them by falling in love.

He had 700 princess wives and 300 mistresses who turned his heart away from the LORD,

because as Solomon grew older, his wives turned his affections away after other gods, and his heart was not fully as devoted to the LORD his God as his father David's heart had been.

Solomon pursued Astarte, the Sidonian goddess, and Milcom, that detestable Ammonite idol.

Later, Solomon even constructed a high place on the mountain east of Jerusalem that was dedicated to Chemosh, that detestable Moabite idol, and to Molech, the detestable Ammonite idol.

Solomon did this for all of his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their own gods.

and warned him about this so he would not pursue other gods. But he did not obey what the LORD had commanded,

so the LORD told Solomon, "Because you have done this and haven't kept my covenant and statutes that I commanded you, I'm going to tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant.

For the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, I won't tear away the entire kingdom. I'll leave one tribe for your son to govern."

They left Midian, arrived in Paran, and left from Paran with some men and traveled on to Egypt, where Pharaoh, king of Egypt, gave him a house to live in, assigned a food allotment to him, and gave him some land.

Later on, Hadad learned in Egypt that David had been buried with his ancestors and that Joab the army commander was dead. So Hadad asked Pharaoh, "Please send me out so I can go back to my own land."

Pharaoh asked him, "But have you lacked anything from me that would make you want to go back to your own country?" "No," he answered, "but I still really must leave."

He raised an army and commanded a gang of raiders after David had eliminated those who lived in Zobah. Rezon and his army moved to Damascus, remained there, and Rezon ruled from Damascus.

and this is why he rose in rebellion against the king: Solomon had built up the terrace ramparts in the city of his father David in order to repair a weakness.

Jeroboam was a valiant soldier, and because Solomon observed that the young man was able to get things done, he set him in charge over all of the conscripted labor from the household of Joseph.

During that time, Jeroboam left Jerusalem and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met him on the road. Ahijah had wrapped himself up in a new cloak, and both of them were alone on the open road.

Ahijah grabbed the new cloak that he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces!

"Pay attention! I'm going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's control and give you ten tribes. I'll leave him one tribe for the sake of my servant David and one tribe for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I chose from all of the tribes of Israel.

I'm doing this because they have abandoned me and worshipped that Sidonian goddess Astarte, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom. They haven't lived my way by doing what I consider to be right and observing my statutes and my ordinances, like his father David did.

"Nevertheless, I won't take the entire kingdom away from him, but I'll let him reign for the rest of his life, because of my servant David, whom I chose, who obeyed my commandments and statutes,

but I will take the kingdom away from his son's control and give ten tribes to you.

I'll give one tribe to his son, so my servant David will always have a light shining in my presence in Jerusalem, the city that I chose for myself and where I have placed my name.

I'm going to take you and have you reign over whatever you desire. You will be king over Israel.

If you listen to everything that I command you to do, and if you live your life my way, and if you do what I consider to be right by observing my statutes and my commandments, just like my servant David did, then I will be with you, I will build an enduring dynasty for you, just like I did for David, and I'll give Israel to you.

That's why Solomon tried to execute Jeroboam, but Jeroboam got up and fled to Egypt, where he lived as a guest of King Shishak and remained until Solomon had died.

Then Solomon died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

Rehoboam traveled to Shechem because all of Israel went there to install him as king.

after being summoned. When Jeroboam and the entire assembly of Israel arrived, they spoke to Rehoboam,

"Your father made our burdens unbearable. Therefore lighten your father's requirements and his heavy burdens that he placed on us, and we'll serve you."

They advised him, "If today you are a servant, you will serve this people by answering them and speaking kindly to them. Then they will serve you forever."

But Rehoboam ignored the counsel that his elder advisors had given him. Instead, he consulted the younger men who had grown up with him and who worked for him.

So Jeroboam and all the people went back to Rehoboam on the third day, just as they had been directed when the king said, "Come back again in three days."

And so Rehoboam ruled over the Israelis who lived in the cities of Judah.

King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of conscripted labor, but all of Israel stoned him to death, and King Rehoboam had to jump in his chariot and flee back in a hurry to Jerusalem.

Now when all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him and invited him to visit their assembly, where they installed him as king over all of Israel. Nobody (with the sole exception of the tribe of Judah) would align with David's dynasty.

As soon as Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled 180,000 elite soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, intending to attack the dynasty of Israel and restore the kingdom to Solomon's son Rehoboam.

"Tell Solomon's son Rehoboam, king of Judah, all the dynasty of Judah, Benjamin, and the rest of the people,

"This is what the LORD says: "You are not to fight or even approach your fellow Israelis in battle. Every soldier is to return to his own home, because this development comes from me."'" So they listened to what the LORD had to say and returned home, just as the LORD had directed.

Later on, Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. He also expanded from there and built Penuel.

If these people keep going up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to the LORD there, the hearts of these people will return to their lord, King Rehoboam of Judah. Then they'll kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah!"

So the king sought some advice and then built two golden calves and announced, "It's too difficult for you to travel to Jerusalem. So here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!"

He set one of them in Bethel and placed the other one in Dan.

Jeroboam built temples on the high places, and appointed his own priests from the fringe elements of the people who were not descendants of Levi.

Jeroboam invented a festival for the fifteenth day of the eighth month similar to the festival that takes place in Judah. He approached the altar that he had set up in Bethel and sacrificed to the calves that he had made, having stationed in Bethel the priests that he had appointed.

Then, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, he went up to burn incense on the altar that he had set up in Bethel, thus beginning the festival that he had made up out of his own heart for the Israelis.

Later that same day, he gave them a special display of power of what was to come when he said, "Here's proof that the LORD has decreed this: Look! This altar will be split apart and the ashes that are on it will spill out."

When he heard the man of God curse the altar in Bethel, the king pointed at the man of God from where the king was standing at the altar. "Seize him!" he ordered. But all of a sudden his hand that he had stretched out dried up, and he could not bring it back to his side!

Also, the altar broke apart and the ashes that were on it spilled out from the altar, providing just the proof that the man of God had predicted in his message from the LORD!

"Please!" the king begged the man of God, "Ask the LORD your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored for me!" So the man of God asked the LORD, and the king's hand was immediately and fully restored, just like it had been before.

So the king told the man of God, "Come back to my palace and rest a while. I'd like to give you a reward."

But the man of God replied to the king, "Even if you were to offer me half of your house, I wouldn't go with you, and I'm sure not going to eat even a piece of bread or drink water in this place,

Now there was an old prophet who lived in Bethel, and his sons went to him and told him everything that the man of God had accomplished that day in Bethel, including the message that he had delivered to the king.

and he rode off after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. "You're the man of God who came from Judah, aren't you?" the old prophet asked him. "I am," he replied.

"Come home with me and have a meal," he told him.

because I've been given a command in the form of this message from the LORD: "You are to eat no food, drink no water, and do not return to Judah by traveling the way by which you go there.'"

"I'm a prophet like you," the old man replied, "and an angel spoke to me and delivered this message from the LORD: "Bring him back with you to your house and give him food and water.'" But he was lying,

and the man of God accompanied the old prophet back to his house, ate some food, and drank some water.

so he cried out to the man of God from Judah: "This is what the LORD says: "Because you disobeyed a command from the LORD and haven't done what the LORD your God commanded you to do,

but instead you returned to eat and drink in the very place that he told you "Eat no food and drink no water," your body will not be buried in the same grave as your ancestors.'"

After the meal was over, and the man had eaten food and had drunk water, the old prophet saddled the donkey for him that is, for the man of God whom he had brought back.

Not long after the man of God had left, a lion met him along the road and killed him. His body was left lying in the middle of the road with the donkey standing beside it and with the lion also standing next to the body.

When some men passed by and noticed the body lying in the middle of the road and the lion standing beside the body, they went straight to the city and told what had happened in the city where the old prophet lived.

The prophet who had brought the man of God back from the road learned about it. "It's the man of God who disobeyed the message from the LORD," he said. "That's why the LORD gave him to that lion, which mauled him and killed him, just as the message from the LORD told rebuke him."

The old prophet went out, located the body on the road where the donkey and the lion were standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body nor mauled the donkey.

The prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to the city where the old man lived so he could mourn and bury him.

He buried the corpse in his own grave and his family mourned for him, crying out, "Oh, no! My brother!"

because what he predicted by a message from the LORD against the altar in Bethel and the temples built in the high places of the cities of Samaria will certainly come about."

so Jeroboam suggested to his wife, "Get up, disguise yourself so that no one will know that you're Jeroboam's wife, and go to Shiloh where the prophet Ahijah lives. He's the one who told me that I would be king over this people.

Take ten loaves with you, some cakes, and a jar of honey and go visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy."

So that's what Jeroboam's wife did. She got up, went to Shiloh, and found Ahijah's home. Ahijah was blind, because his eyes could not focus due to his age.

Meanwhile, the LORD had spoken to Ahijah, "Be on your guard! Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, because he is ill. You're to say such and such to her. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else!"

"I tore the kingdom away from David's dynasty. "Then I gave it to you. But you have not lived like my servant David, who kept my commands with all his heart, and did only what I considered to be right.

"Instead, you have done more evil than everyone who lived before you. "You have gone out and crafted other gods for yourself. "You made cast images. "You have provoked me to anger. "You have thrown me behind your back.

"Therefore, watch while I bring calamity on Jeroboam's dynasty! "I will eliminate every male, both slave and free in Israel, from Jeroboam.

"Now get up and go home. When your feet cross the city line, your child will die.

Everyone in Israel will mourn for him and will bury him, because he alone from Jeroboam's family will receive a decent burial, because something good was observed in him with respect to the LORD God of Israel out of all the household of Jeroboam!

"In addition to this, the LORD will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will eliminate Jeroboam's dynasty, starting today and from now on.

The LORD will attack Israel, and Israel will shake like a reed shakes in a river current! He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and he will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they erected their Asherim and provoked the LORD to become angry!

He will give up Israel because of Jeroboam's sins that he committed and by which Jeroboam caused Israel to sin."

Then Jeroboam's wife got up and left for Tirzah. As soon as she set foot over the threshold of the house, the child died.

Now as for the rest of Jeroboam's accomplishments, including how he waged war and how he reigned, you may read about them in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

Jeroboam reigned for 22 years and then died, as had his ancestors, and his son Nadab reigned in his place.

Meanwhile, Solomon's son Rehoboam reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city where the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel to place his Name. His mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.

They erected high places, sacred pillars, and Asherim for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree.

They even maintained male shrine prostitutes throughout the land, and imitated every detestable practice that the nations practiced whom the LORD had expelled in front of the Israelis.

As a result, during the fifth year of the reign of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt invaded and attacked Jerusalem.

He stripped the LORD's Temple and the royal palace of their treasures. He took everything, even the gold shields that Solomon had made.

King Rehoboam made shields out of bronze to take their place, and then committed them to the care and custody of the commanders of those who guarded the entrance to the royal palace.

Whenever the king entered the LORD's Temple, the guards would carry them to and from the guard's quarters.

As to the rest of Rehoboam's accomplishments, and everything else that he undertook, they are recorded in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, aren't they?

There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam,

but eventually Rehoboam died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His mother's name had been Naamah the Ammonite, and his son Abijah became king to replace him.

There was continual military conflict between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout his entire lifetime.

The rest of Abijah's accomplishments, including everything he undertook, are written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, are they not? And a state of war continued to exist between Abijah and Jeroboam.

Eventually, Abijah died, as did his ancestors, and he was buried in the City of David. His son Asa succeeded him as king.

He also removed the male cult prostitutes from the land and destroyed all the idols that his ancestors had made.

He removed his mother Maacah from her position as Queen Mother because she had made a detestable image dedicated to Asherah. Asa cut down his mother's idol, crushed it, and burned it at the Kidron Brook.

Asa brought into the LORD's Temple the things that his father had dedicated, as well as his own dedicated gifts such as silver, gold, and temple service implements.

A state of continual military unrest existed between Asa and King Baasha of Israel throughout their lifetimes.

King Baasha of Israel invaded Judah and interdicted Ramah by building fortifications around it so no one could enter or leave to join King Asa of Judah.