2 Chronicles 11

²¹And when Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mobilized the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—180,000 chosen warriors—to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.

²²But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God:

³⁰There is no wisdom, no understanding, no counsel that can prevail against the Lord.

³¹A horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory is of the Lord.

¹⁶No king is saved by his vast army; no warrior is delivered by his great strength.

¹⁰The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations; He thwarts the devices of the peoples.

¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, from first to last, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the Prophet and of Iddo the Seer concerning the genealogies? There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam throughout their days.

⁵Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the leaders of Judah who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have forsaken Me; therefore, I have forsaken you into the hand of Shishak.’”

⁶So the leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The Lord is righteous.”

²⁷Then a man of God came to Eli and told him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Did I not clearly reveal Myself to your father’s house when they were in Egypt under Pharaoh’s house?

¹¹But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

¹⁴In keeping with the ordinances of his father David, Solomon appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, and the Levites for their duties to offer praise and to minister before the priests according to the daily requirement. He also appointed gatekeepers by their divisions at each gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God.

²²But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God:

²³“Tell Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and the rest of the people

⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

⁴And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel:

⁵From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000,

³⁴To this day they are still practicing their former customs. None of them worship the Lord or observe the statutes, ordinances, laws, and commandments that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom He named Israel.

²⁸These are the tribes of Israel, twelve in all, and this was what their father said to them. He blessed them, and he blessed each one with a suitable blessing.

⁴And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Early the next morning he got up and built an altar at the base of the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.

²⁰As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.

⁸Then the Israelites took 200,000 captives from their kinsmen—women, sons, and daughters. They also carried off a great deal of plunder and brought it to Samaria.

⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army that returned to Samaria. “Look,” he said to them, “because of His wrath against Judah, the Lord, the God of your fathers, has delivered them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches up to heaven.

¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from God, in order that the Lord might fulfill the word that He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

¹⁶When all Israel saw that the king had refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What portion do we have in David, and what inheritance in the son of Jesse? To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, O David!” So all the Israelites went home,

⁷But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—not with any of the Ephraimites.

⁸Even if you go and fight bravely in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy, for God has power to help and power to overthrow.”

²⁹During that time, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met Jeroboam on the road as he was going out of Jerusalem. Now Ahijah had wrapped himself in a new cloak, and the two of them were alone in the open field.

³⁰And Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces,

³⁶As the sun was setting, the cry rang out in the army: “Every man to his own city, and every man to his own land!”

²Solomon rebuilt the cities Hiram had given him and settled Israelites there.

³Then Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it.

²³Rehoboam also acted wisely by dispersing some of his sons throughout the districts of Judah and Benjamin, and to all the fortified cities. He gave them abundant provisions and sought many wives for them.

⁶Because the land was at peace, Asa built fortified cities in Judah. In those days no one made war with him, because the Lord had given him rest.

⁷So he said to the people of Judah, “Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, with doors and bars. The land is still ours because we have sought the Lord our God. We have sought Him, and He has given us rest on every side.” So they built and prospered.

⁸He has uncovered the defenses of Judah. On that day you looked to the weapons in the House of the Forest.

⁹You saw that there were many breaches in the walls of the City of David. You collected water from the lower pool.

⁴He also built cities in the hill country of Judah and fortresses and towers in the forests.

⁶Uzziah went out to wage war against the Philistines, and he tore down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod. Then he built cities near Ashdod and among the Philistines.

¹“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.

²⁰Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

³²And their villages were Etam, Ain, Rimmon, Tochen, and Ashan—five towns—

⁵“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

⁶‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of My people Israel.’”

⁸And he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter, and then went down and stayed in the cave at the rock of Etam.

²⁷And next to them, the Tekoites repaired another section, from a point opposite the great tower that juts out to the wall of Ophel.

³⁵Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,

¹So David left Gath and took refuge in the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and the rest of his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there.

¹⁵the king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one;

¹⁵I will again bring a conqueror against you, O dweller of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

¹³At harvest time, three of the thirty chief men went down to David at the cave of Adullam, while a company of Philistines was encamped in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁵⁸Halhul, Beth-zur, Gedor,

¹⁹Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah south of Jeshimon?

¹For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments. A Maskil of David. When the Ziphites went to Saul and said, “Is David not hiding among us?” Save me, O God, by Your name, and vindicate me by Your might!

¹Some time later, David defeated the Philistines, subdued them, and took Gath and its villages from the hand of the Philistines.

⁴⁴Keilah, Achzib, and Mareshah—nine cities, along with their villages.

²⁴Ziph, Telem, Bealoth,

¹⁴And David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God would not deliver David into his hand.

³⁹Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon,

⁹Later, as Sennacherib king of Assyria and all his forces besieged Lachish, he sent his servants to Jerusalem with a message for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem:

⁵So the five kings of the Amorites—the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon—joined forces and advanced with all their armies. They camped before Gibeon and made war against it.

¹¹As they fled before Israel along the descent from Beth-horon to Azekah, the Lord cast down on them large hailstones from the sky, and more of them were killed by the hailstones than by the swords of the Israelites.

³⁵Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,

³³These were in the foothills: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah,

²She died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went out to mourn and to weep for her.

⁷So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

¹¹And the length of time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

⁴¹The territory of their inheritance included Zorah, Eshtaol, Ir-shemesh,

⁴²Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,

¹⁴Therefore Hebron belongs to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite as an inheritance to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁹These were the men who served the king, besides those he stationed in the fortified cities throughout Judah.

²³Rehoboam also acted wisely by dispersing some of his sons throughout the districts of Judah and Benjamin, and to all the fortified cities. He gave them abundant provisions and sought many wives for them.

¹⁰You counted the houses of Jerusalem and tore them down to strengthen the wall.

¹¹You built a reservoir between the walls for the waters of the ancient pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or consider Him who planned it long ago.

⁵Then Hezekiah worked resolutely to rebuild all the broken sections of the wall and to raise up towers on it. He also built an outer wall and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David, and he produced an abundance of weapons and shields.

¹⁴Uzziah supplied the entire army with shields, spears, helmets, armor, bows, and slingstones.

¹⁵And in Jerusalem he made skillfully designed devices to shoot arrows and catapult large stones from the towers and corners. So his fame spread far and wide, for he was helped tremendously until he became powerful.

²²And Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad, because he hated Amnon for violating his sister Tamar.

¹⁹And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore her robe. And putting her hand on her head, she went away crying aloud.

⁹But did you not drive out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites? And did you not make priests for yourselves as do the peoples of other lands? Now whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams can become a priest of things that are not gods.

²“Command the Israelites to give, from the inheritance they will possess, cities for the Levites to live in and pasturelands around the cities.

³The cities will be for them to live in, and the pasturelands will be for their herds, their flocks, and all their other livestock.

²⁸After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

²⁹One calf he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.

²¹Behold, I have given to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work they do, the service of the Tent of Meeting.

²²No longer may the Israelites come near to the Tent of Meeting, or they will incur guilt and die.

²⁰The remaining Kohathite clans of the Levites were allotted these cities: From the tribe of Ephraim

²¹they were given Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim (a city of refuge for the manslayer), Gezer,

³⁰Thus any tithe from the land, whether from the seed of the land or the fruit of the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.

³¹If a man wishes to redeem part of his tithe, he must add a fifth to its value.

²⁸After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much for you. Here, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

³³Even after these events, Jeroboam did not repent of his evil ways, but again he appointed priests for the high places from every class of people. He ordained anyone who desired to be a priest of the high places.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.

³¹Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites.

⁴He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”

¹⁹At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.

²⁰They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.

⁹And he assembled all Judah and Benjamin, along with those from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had settled among them, for great numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

⁸They feed on the sins of My people and set their hearts on iniquity.

⁵Instead, you must seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.

⁶To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

¹³Be careful not to offer your burnt offerings in just any place you see;

¹⁴you must offer them only in the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribal territories, and there you shall do all that I command you.

¹Then David said, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God, as well as the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

⁵Now this is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Consider carefully your ways.

¹After Rehoboam had established his sovereignty and royal power, he and all Israel with him forsook the Law of the Lord.

¹Now Solomon son of David established himself securely over his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him and highly exalted him.

²Then Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to every leader in all Israel—the heads of the families.

¹³He observed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles.

¹⁴In keeping with the ordinances of his father David, Solomon appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, and the Levites for their duties to offer praise and to minister before the priests according to the daily requirement. He also appointed gatekeepers by their divisions at each gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God.

¹⁷And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

¹⁸then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.’

²⁰The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.

²¹But since he has no root, he remains for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.

⁴What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? For your loyalty is like a morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes.

⁶When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and said, “Surely here before the Lord is His anointed.”

¹³The three older sons of Jesse had followed Saul into battle: The firstborn was Eliab, the second was Abinadab, and the third was Shammah.

¹⁸over Judah was Elihu, one of David’s brothers; over Issachar was Omri son of Michael;

²⁸Now when David’s oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, his anger burned against David. “Why have you come down here?” he asked. “And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and wickedness of heart—you have come down to see the battle!”

¹³Jesse was the father of Eliab his firstborn; Abinadab was born second, Shimea third,

²and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Micaiah daughter of Uriel; she was from Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

¹In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam son of Nebat, Abijam became king of Judah,

²and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Maacah daughter of Abishalom.

²¹Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than all his wives and concubines. In all, he had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

¹⁶And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And his son Abijah reigned in his place.

⁷Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa.

³⁰Gideon had seventy sons of his own, since he had many wives.

¹⁷He must not take many wives for himself, lest his heart go astray. He must not accumulate for himself large amounts of silver and gold.

³He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines—and his wives turned his heart away.

¹³After he had arrived from Hebron, David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him.

²And sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon, by Ahinoam of Jezreel;

³his second was Chileab, by Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; his third was Absalom, the son of Maacah daughter of King Talmai of Geshur;

²³Rehoboam also acted wisely by dispersing some of his sons throughout the districts of Judah and Benjamin, and to all the fortified cities. He gave them abundant provisions and sought many wives for them.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, one beloved and the other unloved, and both bear him sons, but the unloved wife has the firstborn son,

¹⁶when that man assigns his inheritance to his sons he must not appoint the son of the beloved wife as the firstborn over the son of the unloved wife.

¹Then King David said to the whole assembly, “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The task is great because this palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.

¹These were the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel. Though he was the firstborn, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel, because Reuben defiled his father’s bed. So he is not reckoned according to birthright.

²And though Judah prevailed over his brothers and a ruler came from him, the birthright belonged to Joseph.

⁸But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him.

⁹He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to these people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

⁶But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

⁵At that time Adonijah, David’s son by Haggith, began to exalt himself, saying, “I will be king!” And he acquired chariots and horsemen and fifty men to run ahead of him.

⁶(His father had never once reprimanded him by saying, “Why do you act this way?” Adonijah was also very handsome, born next after Absalom.)

⁸The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light.

³Their father had given them many gifts of silver and gold and precious things, as well as the fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram because he was the firstborn.