14. and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with barbed whips.”
15. The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events came from the Lord to carry out His word, which the Lord had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.
16. When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him:What portion do we have in David?We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Israel, return to your tents;David, now look after your own house! So Israel went to their tents,
17. but Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites living in the cities of Judah.
18. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam managed to get into the chariot and flee to Jerusalem.
19. Israel is in rebellion against the house of David until today.
20. When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No one followed the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.
21. When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mobilized 180,000 choice warriors from the entire house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin to fight against the house of Israel to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.
22. But a revelation from God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:
23. “Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,
24. ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you must return home, for I have done this.’ ” So they listened to what the Lord said and went back as He had told them.
25. Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and built Penuel.
26. Jeroboam said to himself, “The way things are going now, the kingdom might return to the house of David.
27. If these people regularly go to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, the heart of these people will return to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will murder me and go back to the king of Judah.”
28. So the king sought advice.Then he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, “Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
29. He set up one in Bethel, and put the other in Dan.
30. This led to sin; the people walked in procession before one of the calves all the way to Dan.
31. Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and set up priests from every class of people who were not Levites.
32. Jeroboam made a festival in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival in Judah. He offered sacrifices on the altar; he made this offering in Bethel to sacrifice to the calves he had set up. He also stationed the priests in Bethel for the high places he had set up.