1 Kings 14:21–26

¹³¶ So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

³⁶And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.

³¹And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

³²(But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)

⁴³And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

¹⁶Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build an house, that my name might be therein; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.

⁴⁴¶ If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name:

⁷And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them.

²¹If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.

⁵But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:

³An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the Lord for ever:

²⁴¶ An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

⁶Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.

¹³For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.

¹⁴This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.

⁶⁸But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved.

⁶⁹And he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever.

¹HIS foundation is in the holy mountains.

²The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

²²Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he?

¹AND it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.

⁵⁸For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.

⁹But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:

³⁰And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.

¹⁴And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.

¹⁹Also Judah kept not the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made.

²⁸And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

¹⁶They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

¹⁷They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

¹⁸Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

¹⁹And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

²⁰And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

²¹They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

²⁴For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

³A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick;

⁴Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;

¹²¶ And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.

⁷And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.

¹AND the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, when Ehud was dead.

¹¹Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols:

⁴⁷Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.

⁴⁸As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.

⁷And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

⁸And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

⁹And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.

¹⁰And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord.

¹¹And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

²Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

⁵Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?

⁹And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

¹⁰And they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and under every green tree:

²⁴That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.

²⁵Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.

¹⁵For the Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking the Lord to anger.

²Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built unto the name of the Lord, until those days.

⁴He sacrificed also and burnt incense in the high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree.

³For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

⁴And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.

⁵And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

⁶And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

⁷And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

²²Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the Lord thy God hateth.

²⁸For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savour, and poured out there their drink offerings.

²⁹Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.

²Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.

²⁰¶ For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

¹³Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord.

¹YE shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the Lord your God.

¹⁴And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.

¹⁷¶ There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.

⁹Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

¹²And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

⁷And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.

⁴⁶And the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father Asa, he took out of the land.

⁵And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

²²¶ Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.

²⁴Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

²⁵Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

²⁶For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

²⁷And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

⁴⁰Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

²And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord,

³With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians.

⁴And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem.

⁹So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

¹⁸Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying,

¹⁵¶ And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of beaten gold went to one target.

¹⁶And three hundred shields made he of beaten gold: three hundred shekels of gold went to one shield. And the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁶¶ And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold: six hundred shekels of gold went to one target.

¹⁷And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three pound of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

⁵¹So was ended all the work that king Solomon made for the house of the Lord. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated; even the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, did he put among the treasures of the house of the Lord.

⁹So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

¹⁰Instead of which king Rehoboam made shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard, that kept the entrance of the king’s house.

¹¹And when the king entered into the house of the Lord, the guard came and fetched them, and brought them again into the guard chamber.

¹³And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said.

¹⁸¶ Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.

¹⁹And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

⁵Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

⁶Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

³⁵Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.

³⁶His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

³⁷It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.

³⁸But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.

³⁹Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.

⁴⁰Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin.

⁴¹All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours.

⁴²Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.

⁴³Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle.

⁴⁴Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground.

⁴⁵The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.