CHAPTER 11

¹And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem and assembled all the house of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred eighty thousand picked warriors to do battle with Israel to bring back the kingship to Rehoboam. ²And the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah man of God, saying, ³“Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah and to all Judah and Benjamin, saying, ⁴Thus said the LORD, ‘You shall not go up and you shall not do battle with your brothers. Go back each man to his house, for from Me this thing has come about.’” And they heeded the words of the LORD and turned back from going against Jeroboam. ⁵And Rehoboam dwelled in Jerusalem and built fortified towns in Judah. ⁶And he built Bethlehem and Etam and Tekoa, ⁷and Beth-Zur and Socho and Adullam, ⁸and Gath and Mareshah and Ziph, ⁹and Adoraim and Lachish and Azekah, and ¹⁰Zorah and Aijalon and Hebron, fortified towns that are in Judah and Benjamin. ¹¹And he reinforced the fortified towns and put officers in them and stores of food and oil and wine, ¹²and in every single town shields and spears, and he reinforced them very strongly. And so Judah and Benjamin were his.

¹³And the priests and the Levites who were throughout Israel from all their territory took a stance before him. ¹⁴For the priests and the Levites had abandoned their pasturelands and their holdings and had come to Judah and to Jerusalem because Jeroboam, with his sons, had excluded them from serving as priests to the LORD. ¹⁵And he set up for himself priests for the high places and for the satyrs and the calves that he had made. ¹⁶And after them there came to Jerusalem from all the tribes of Israel those who devoted their heart to seek the LORD God of Israel to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers. ¹⁷And they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and supported Rehoboam son of Solomon for three years, for they went in the way of David and Solomon for three years. ¹⁸And Rehoboam took him as wife Mahahlath daughter of Jerimoth son of David, and Abihail daughter of Eliab son of Jesse. ¹⁹And she bore him sons—Jeush and Shamariah and Zaham. ²⁰And after he took Maachah daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith. ²¹And Rehoboam loved Maachah more than all his wives and his concubines, for he had married eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he begat twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. ²²And Rehoboam put at the head as prince over his brothers Abijah son of Maachah, for [he meant] to make him king. ²³And he wisely spread all his sons through all the regions of Judah and Benjamin to all the fortified towns, and he married them off with wives.