1 Kings 14

¹ At that time, Abijah, Jeroboam’s son, became ill.

² Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please get up, disguise yourself so they won’t know you are Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. The prophet Ahijah is there. He is the one who told me I would be king over this people.

³ Take ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey in your hand, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.”

⁴ Jeroboam’s wife did this. She got up, went to Shiloh, and came to Ahijah’s house. Ahijah could not see, because his eyes had grown fixed with age.

⁵ The LORD had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, because he is ill. Tell her this and that. When she arrives, she will be disguised.”

⁶ When Ahijah heard the sound of her feet as she came through the doorway, he said, “Come in, Jeroboam’s wife. Why are you disguising yourself? I have been sent to you with a hard message.

⁷ Go and tell Jeroboam, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: “I raised you up from among the people and made you leader over my people Israel.

⁸ I tore the kingdom away from David’s house and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.

⁹ You have done worse than all who came before you. You went and made other gods for yourself and cast images to provoke me to anger, and you have thrown me behind your back.

¹⁰ So I am bringing disaster on Jeroboam’s house. I will cut off from Jeroboam every male in Israel, slave or free. I will sweep away Jeroboam’s house as one sweeps away dung, until it is all gone.”’”

¹¹ “‘“Anyone from Jeroboam’s family who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone who dies in the field will be eaten by the birds of the sky.” For the LORD has spoken.’”

¹² “As for you, get up and go home. When your feet enter the city, the boy will die.

¹³ All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He alone from Jeroboam’s house will be laid in a tomb, because something good toward the LORD, the God of Israel, was found in him among all those in Jeroboam’s house.

¹⁴ The LORD will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will wipe out Jeroboam’s house. It will happen today—yes, even now.

¹⁵ The LORD will strike Israel, and it will sway like a reed in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave their fathers and scatter them beyond the River, because they made their Asherah poles and provoked the LORD to anger.

¹⁶ He will give Israel up because of the sins Jeroboam committed and caused Israel to commit.”

¹⁷ Jeroboam’s wife got up, left, and arrived at Tirzah. As she stepped over the threshold of the house, the boy died.

¹⁸ They buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, just as the LORD had spoken through his servant, the prophet Ahijah.

¹⁹ The rest of Jeroboam’s deeds, the wars he fought and how he ruled, are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.

²⁰ Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years. He rested with his ancestors, and his son Nadab succeeded him as king.

²¹ Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD chose from all the tribes of Israel to place his name there. His mother’s name was Naamah, the Ammonite.

²² Judah did what was evil in the LORD’s eyes. Their sins stirred his jealousy more than all that their fathers had done.

²³ They too built shrines for themselves on the hills, along with sacred pillars and Asherah poles, on every high hill and beneath every leafy tree.

²⁴ There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. The people did all the detestable things practiced by the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

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

²⁶ He took the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.

²⁷ King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and entrusted them to the commanders of the guards who watched the entrance to the king’s house.

²⁸ Whenever the king went to the house of the LORD, the guards carried the shields and then returned them to the guards’ room.

²⁹ The rest of Rehoboam’s deeds, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?

³⁰ There was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

³¹ Rehoboam rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. His mother’s name was Naamah, the Ammonite. His son Abijam succeeded him as king.

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