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1 KingsChapter 12

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Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king.
Now Jeroboam son of Nebat heard of it while he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon; and Jeroboam stayed on in Egypt.
So they sent for him and called him, and Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam:
"Your father made our yoke harsh. Now lighten the hard labor your father imposed and the heavy yoke he laid on us, and we will serve you."
He said to them, "Go away for three days, then come back to me." So the people went away.
King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served in the presence of his father Solomon while he was alive. "What do you advise?" he asked. "How shall I answer these people?"
They said to him, "If today you will be a servant to these people, serve them, answer them, and speak kind words to them, they will be your servants forever."
But he rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and who served him.
He asked them, "What do you advise? How shall we answer these people who have said to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father laid on us'?"
The young men who had grown up with him replied, "Tell these people who said to you, 'Your father made our yoke heavy; now lighten it for us'—tell them this: 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.'
Now then, my father loaded you with a heavy yoke; I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips; I will discipline you with scorpions."
Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had said: "Come back to me on the third day."
The king answered the people harshly. He rejected the advice the elders had given him
and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men: "My father made your yoke heavy; I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips; I will discipline you with scorpions."
So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events came from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.
When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king: "What share do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Look to your own house now, David!" So Israel went off to their tents.
But Rehoboam ruled over the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah.
Then King Rehoboam sent out Adoram, who was in charge of the forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem.
So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No one followed the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.
When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—a hundred and eighty thousand able young warriors—to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.
But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:
"Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, to the whole house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people:
This is what the LORD says: Do not march up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Every one of you go home, for this thing is from me." So they obeyed the word of the LORD and turned back, as the LORD had commanded.
Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. From there he went out and fortified Penuel.
Jeroboam said to himself, "Now the kingdom is likely to revert to the house of David.
If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, their hearts will turn back to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah."
So the king took counsel and made two golden calves. He said to the people, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt."
He set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.
And this thing became a sin, for the people went before the one calf even as far as Dan.
Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, though they were not Levites.
Jeroboam instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and he went up to the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made, and in Bethel he installed the priests of the high places he had made.
On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month he had devised in his own heart, he went up to the altar he had built in Bethel. So he instituted a festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.
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