God

for the message that he cried out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the cities of Samaria will surely come to pass.”

But the LORD had said to Ahijah, “Behold, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill. You are to say such and such to her, because when she arrives, she will be disguised.”

Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over My people Israel.

I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you. But you were not like My servant David, who kept My commandments and followed Me with all his heart, doing only what was right in My eyes.

You have done more evil than all who came before you. You have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me, and you have flung Me behind your back.

Because of all this, behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both slave and free, in Israel; I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone!

Anyone belonging to Jeroboam 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 air.’ For the LORD has spoken.

All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. For this is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will receive a proper burial, because only in him has the LORD, the God of Israel, found any good in the house of Jeroboam.

Moreover, the LORD will raise up for Himself a king over Israel who will cut off the house of Jeroboam. This is the day—yes, even today!

For the LORD will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave their fathers, and He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking the LORD to anger.

So He will give Israel over on account of the sins Jeroboam has committed and has caused Israel to commit.”

And they buried him, and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servant Ahijah the prophet.

Meanwhile, Rehoboam son of Solomon reigned in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel in which to put His Name. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.

And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done.

There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land. They imitated all the abominations of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.

He seized the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields that Solomon had made.

And whenever the king entered the house of the LORD, the guards would bear the shields, and later they would return them to the guardroom.

And Abijam walked in all the sins that his father before him had committed, and his heart was not as fully devoted to the LORD his God as the heart of David his forefather had been.

Nevertheless, for the sake of David, the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and to make Jerusalem strong.

For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not turned aside from anything the LORD commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, as his father David had done.

The high places were not removed, but Asa’s heart was fully devoted to the LORD all his days.

And he brought into the house of the LORD the silver and gold and other articles that he and his father had dedicated.

So Asa withdrew all the silver and gold that remained in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and the royal palace. He entrusted it to his servants and sent them with this message to Ben-hadad son of Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion king of Aram, who was ruling in Damascus:

And he did evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of his father and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit.