5Rehoboam replied, “Return to me in three days.” So the people left.

6Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had attended his father Solomon when he was alive, asking, “How do you advise me to respond to this people?”

7They replied, “If you will be kind to this people and please them by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”

8But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him, and he consulted with the young men who had grown up with him, the ones attending him.

9He asked them, “What message do you advise we send back to this people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

10Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us! ’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist!

11Now therefore, my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I, with barbed whips.’”10:11 Lit with scorpions, also in v. 14

12So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had ordered, saying, “Return to me on the third day.”

13Then the king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the elders’ advice

14and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy,10:14 Some Hb mss, LXX; other Hb mss read I will make your yoke heavy; 1Kg 12:1410:14 1Kg 12:14 but I will add to it; my father disciplined you with whips, but I, with barbed whips.”

15The king did not listen to the people because the turn of events came from God,10:15 2Ch 25:16–20 in order that the Lord might carry out his word that he had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.10:15 1Kg 11:29–39

16When10:16–17 2Sm 20:1–2 all Israel saw10:16 Some Hb mss, LXX; other Hb mss omit saw; 1Kg 12:1610:16 1Kg 12:16 that the king had not listened to them, the people answered the king:

18Then King Rehoboam sent Hadoram,10:18 = Adoram in 1Kg 12:1810:18 1Kg 4:6; 5:14; 12:18 who was in charge of the forced labor, but the Israelites stoned him to death. However, King Rehoboam managed to get into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.

19Israel is in rebellion against the house of David until today.