Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 217
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| 14:12-27
SAMUEL–KINGS
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will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”
Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam’s wife, “Go on home, and when you enter
the city, the child will die. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He
is the only member of your family who will have a proper burial, for this
child is the only good thing that the Lord, the God of Israel, sees in the
entire family of Jeroboam.
“In addition, the Lord will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy
the family of Jeroboam. This will happen today, even now! Then the Lord
will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream. He will uproot the
people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will
scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the Lord
with the Asherah poles they have set up for worship. He will abandon Is
rael because Jeroboam sinned and made Israel sin along with him.”
So Jeroboam’s wife returned to Tirzah, and the child died just as she
walked through the door of her home. And all Israel buried him and
mourned for him, as the Lord had promised through the prophet Ahijah.
The rest of the events in Jeroboam’s reign, including all his wars and how
he ruled, are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel. Jer
oboam reigned in Israel twenty-two years. When Jeroboam died, his son
Nadab became the next king.
Meanwhile, Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-
o ne years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in
Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen from among all the tribes of Is
rael as the place to honor his name. Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, an
Ammonite woman.
During Rehoboam’s reign, the people of Judah did what was evil in the
Lord’s sight, provoking his anger with their sin, for it was even worse than
that of their ancestors. For they also built for themselves pagan shrines and
set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every
green tree. There were even male and female shrine prostitutes throughout
the land. The people imitated the detestable practices of the pagan nations
the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites.
In the fifth year of King Rehoboam’s reign, King Shishak of Egypt came
up and attacked Jerusalem. He ransacked the treasuries of the Lord’s
Temple and the royal palace; he stole everything, including all the gold
shields Solomon had made. King Rehoboam later replaced them with