CHAPTER 12

¹And it happened when the kingship of Rehoboam was firmly established and when he gained strength, that he abandoned the teaching of the LORD, and all Israel with him. ²And it happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam that Shishak king of Egypt went up against Jerusalem, for they had betrayed the LORD, ³with twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen, and the troops who came with him from Egypt were beyond numbering—Lybians, Sukkites, and Nubians. ⁴And he captured the fortified towns of Judah and came up to Jerusalem. ⁵And Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and the commanders of Judah who had come to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and he said to them, “Thus said the LORD: You on your part have abandoned Me, and I as well have abandoned you into the hand of Shishak.” ⁶And the commanders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The LORD is in the right.” ⁷And when the LORD saw that they had humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, “They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them, but I will grant them a measure of survival, and My wrath shall not pour out against Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. ⁸But they shall become his servants, that they know My service and the service of the kingdoms of the lands.” ⁹And Shishak king of Egypt went up against Jerusalem and took the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the house of the king. He took everything, and he took the golden bucklers that Solomon had made. ¹⁰And King Rehoboam made in their stead bronze bucklers and entrusted them to the officers of the royal sentries who guarded the entrance of the king’s house. ¹¹And it happened when the king would come to the house of the LORD, the royal sentries would carry them and bring them back to the chamber of the royal sentries. ¹²And when he humbled himself, the LORD’s anger turned back from him so as not to utterly destroy, and throughout Judah, too, there were good things. ¹³And King Rehoboam grew strong in Jerusalem and he reigned, for Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and seventeen years he was king of Jerusalem, the city that the LORD had chosen to set His name there from all the tribes of Israel. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. ¹⁴And he did evil because he did not ready his heart to seek the LORD. ¹⁵And the acts of Rehoboam, early and late, are they not written in the words of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer in tracing lineage? And there was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. ¹⁶And Rehoboam lay with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And Abijah his son was king in his stead.