II Chronicles 11-15

II Chronicles 11

¹And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and got together the men of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam.

²But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

³Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin,

⁴The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers: let every man go back to his house, for this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the words of the Lord and were turned back from fighting against Jeroboam.

⁵Now Rehoboam kept in Jerusalem, building walled towns in Judah.

⁶He was the builder of Beth-lehem and Etam and Tekoa

⁷And Beth-zur and Soco and Adullam

⁸And Gath and Mareshah and Ziph

⁹And Adoraim and Lachish and Azekah

¹⁰And Zorah and Aijalon and Hebron, walled towns in Judah and Benjamin.

¹¹And he made the walled towns strong, and he put captains in them and stores of food, oil, and wine.

¹²And in every town he put stores of body-covers and spears, and made them very strong. And Judah and Benjamin were his.

¹³And the priests and Levites who were in all Israel came together to him from every part of their country.

¹⁴For the Levites gave up their living-places and their property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons had sent them away, not letting them be priests to the Lord;

¹⁵And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.

¹⁶And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, all those whose hearts were fixed and true to the Lord, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to make offerings to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁷So they went on increasing the power of the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong for three years; and for three years they went in the ways of David and Solomon.

¹⁸And Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth, the son of David and of Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse;

¹⁹And she had sons by him, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

²⁰And after her he took Maacah, the daughter of Absalom; and she had Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith by him.

²¹Maacah, the daughter of Absalom, was dearer to Rehoboam than all his wives and his servant-wives: (for he had eighteen wives and sixty servant-wives, and was the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.)

²²Rehoboam made Abijah, the son of Maacah, chief and ruler among his brothers, for it was his purpose to make him king.

²³And in his wisdom he had his sons stationed in every walled town through all the lands of Judah and Benjamin; and he gave them a great store of food, and took wives for them.

II Chronicles 12

¹Now when Rehoboam's position as king had been made certain, and he was strong, he gave up the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.

²Now in the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, because of their sin against the Lord,

³With twelve hundred war-carriages and sixty thousand horsemen: and the people who came with him out of Egypt were more than might be numbered: Lubim and Sukkiim and Ethiopians.

⁴And he took the walled towns of Judah, and came as far as Jerusalem.

⁵Now Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the chiefs of Judah, who had come together in Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, The Lord has said, Because you have given me up, I have given you up into the hands of Shishak.

⁶Then the chiefs of Israel and the king made themselves low and said, The Lord is upright.

⁷And the Lord, seeing that they had made themselves low, said to Shemaiah, They have made themselves low: I will not send destruction on them, but in a short time I will give them salvation, and will not let loose my wrath on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

⁸But still they will become his servants, so that they may see how different my yoke is from the yoke of the kingdoms of the lands.

⁹So Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and took away all the stored wealth of the house of the Lord and the king's house: he took everything away, and with the rest the gold body-covers which Solomon had made.

¹⁰And in their place King Rehoboam had other body-covers made of brass and gave them into the care of the captains of the armed men who were stationed at the door of the king's house.

¹¹And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room.

¹²And when he made himself low, the wrath of the Lord was turned back from him, and complete destruction did not come on him, for there was still some good in Judah.

¹³So King Rehoboam made himself strong in Jerusalem and was ruling there. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was ruling for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

¹⁴And he did evil because his heart was not true to the Lord.

¹⁵Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not recorded in the words of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer? And there were wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

¹⁶And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David; and Abijah his son became king in his place.

II Chronicles 13

¹In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah.

²He was king in Jerusalem for three years; his mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³And Abijah went out to the fight with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand of his best men; and Jeroboam put his forces in line against him, eight hundred thousand of his best men of war.

⁴And Abijah took up his position on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill-country of Ephraim, and said, Give ear to me, O Jeroboam and all Israel:

⁵Is it not clear to you that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the rule over Israel to David and to his sons for ever, by an agreement made with salt?

⁶But Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, took up arms against his lord.

⁷And certain foolish and good-for-nothing men were joined with him, and made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and untested and not able to keep them back.

⁸And now it is your purpose to put yourselves against the authority which the Lord has put into the hands of the sons of David, and you are a very great number, and you have with you the gold oxen which Jeroboam made to be your gods.

⁹And after driving out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, have you not made priests for yourselves as the people of other lands do? so that anyone who comes to make himself priest by offering an ox or seven sheep, may be a priest of those who are no gods.

¹⁰But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not been turned away from him; we have priests who do the work of the Lord, even the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their places;

¹¹By whom burned offerings and perfumes are sent up in smoke before the Lord every morning and every evening; and they put out the holy bread on its table and the gold support for the lights with its lights burning every evening; for we keep the orders given to us by the Lord our God, but you have gone away from him.

¹²And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.

¹³But Jeroboam had put some of his men to make a surprise attack on them from the back, so some were facing Judah and others were stationed secretly at their back.

¹⁴And Judah, turning their faces, saw that they were being attacked in front and at the back; and they gave a cry for help to the Lord, while the priests were sounding their horns.

¹⁵And the men of Judah gave a loud cry; and at their cry, God put fear into Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶And the children of Israel went in flight before Judah, and God gave them up into their hands.

¹⁷And Abijah and his people put them to death with great destruction: five hundred thousand of the best of Israel were put to the sword.

¹⁸So at that time the children of Israel were overcome, and the children of Judah got the better of them, because they put their faith in the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁹And Abijah went after Jeroboam and took some of his towns, Beth-el with its small towns and Jeshanah with its small towns and Ephron with its small towns.

²⁰And Jeroboam did not get back his power again in the life-time of Abijah; and the Lord sent death on him.

²¹But Abijah became great, and had fourteen wives, and became the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²²And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are recorded in the account of the prophet Iddo.

II Chronicles 14

¹So Abijah went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David, and Asa his son became king in his place; in his time the land was quiet for ten years.

²And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God;

³For he took away the altars of strange gods and the high places, and had the upright stones broken and the wood pillars cut down;

⁴And he made Judah go after the Lord, the God of their fathers, and keep his laws and his orders.

⁵And he took away the high places and the sun-images from all the towns of Judah; and the kingdom was quiet under his rule.

⁶He made walled towns in Judah, for the land was quiet and there were no wars in those years, because the Lord had given him rest.

⁷He said to Judah, Let us make these towns, building walls round them with towers and doors and locks. The land is still ours, because we have been true to the Lord our God; we have been true to him and he has given us rest on every side. So they went on building and all went well for them.

⁸And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men of Judah armed with body-covers and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand of Benjamin armed with body-covers and bows; all these were men of war.

⁹And Zerah the Ethiopian, with an army of a million, and three hundred war-carriages, came out against them to Mareshah.

¹⁰And Asa went out against him, and they put their forces in position in the valley north of Mareshah.

¹¹And Asa made prayer to the Lord his God and said, Lord, you only are able to give help against the strong to him who has no strength; come to our help, O Lord our God, for our hope is in you, and in your name we have come out against this great army. O Lord, you are our God; let not man's power be greater than yours.

¹²So the Lord sent fear on the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; and the Ethiopians went in flight.

¹³And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

¹⁴And they overcame all the towns round Gerar, because the Lord sent fear on them; and they took away their goods from the towns, for there were stores of wealth in them.

¹⁵And they made an attack on the tents of the owners of the cattle, and took away great numbers of sheep and camels and went back to Jerusalem.

II Chronicles 15

¹And the spirit of God came on Azariah, the son of Oded;

²And he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.

³Now for a long time Israel has been without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without the law;

⁴But when in their trouble they were turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, searching after him, he let their search be rewarded.

⁵In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

⁶And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

⁷But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your work will be rewarded.

⁸And Asa, hearing these words of Azariah, the son of Oded the prophet, took heart and put away all the disgusting things out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the towns which he had taken from the hill-country of Ephraim; and he made new again the altar of the Lord in front of the covered way of the Lord's house.

⁹And he got together all Judah and Benjamin and those of Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who were living with them; for numbers of them came to him out of Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

¹⁰So they came together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule of Asa.

¹¹And that day they made offerings to the Lord of the things they had taken in war, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.

¹²And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul;

¹³And that anyone, small or great, man or woman, who was not true to the Lord, the God of Israel, would be put to death.

¹⁴And they made an oath to the Lord, with a loud voice, sounding wind-instruments and horns.

¹⁵And all Judah was glad because of the oath, for they had taken it with all their heart, turning to the Lord with all their desire; and he was with them and gave them rest on every side.

¹⁶And Asa would not let Maacah, his mother, be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had her image cut down and broken up and burned by the stream Kidron.

¹⁷But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

¹⁸He took into the house of God all the things which his father had made holy and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.

¹⁹And there was no more war till the thirty-fifth year of the rule of Asa.