The Pillars of Three Faiths: Tanakh, Bible & Qu'ran. Various Authors

that he might be one of the priests of the high places. ³⁴And by this thing there was sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.

      14At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. ²And Jeroboam said to his wife: 'Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh; behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, who spoke concerning me that I should be king over this people. ³And take with thee ten loaves, and biscuits, and a cruse of honey, and go to him; he will tell thee what shall become of the child.' ⁴And Jeroboam's wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age. ⁵Now the Lord had said unto Ahijah: 'Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to inquire of thee concerning her son; for he is sick; thus and thus shalt thou say unto her; for it will be, when she cometh in, that she will feign herself to be another woman.'

      ⁶And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said: 'Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. ⁷Go, tell Jeroboam: Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over My people Israel, ⁸and rent the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it thee; and yet thou hast not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments, and who followed Me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in Mine eyes; ⁹but hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke Me, and hast cast Me behind thy back; ¹⁰therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam every man-child, and him that is shut up and him that is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweepeth away dung, till it be all gone. ¹¹Him that dieth of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat; for the Lord hath spoken it. ¹²Arise thou therefore, get thee to thy house; and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. ¹³And all Israel shall make lamentation for him, and bury him; for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave; because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord, the God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam. ¹⁴Moreover the Lord will raise Him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day. But what is it even then? ¹⁵for the Lord will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and He will root up Israel out of this good land, which He gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River; because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord. ¹⁶And He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he hath sinned, and wherewith he hath made Israel to sin.'

      ¹⁷And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah; and as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died. ¹⁸And all Israel buried him, and made lamentation for him; according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke by the hand of His servant Ahijah the prophet.

      ¹⁹And the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he warred, and how he reigned, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. ²⁰And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years; and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

      ²¹And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one 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 the Ammonitess. ²²And Judah did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord; and they moved Him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done. ²³For they also built them high places, and pillars, and Asherim, on every high hill, and under every leafy tree; ²⁴and there were also sodomites in the land; they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord drove out before the children of Israel.

      ²⁵And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; ²⁶and he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. ²⁷And king Rehoboam made in their stead shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard, who kept the door of the king's house. ²⁸And it was so, that as oft as the king went into the house of the Lord, the guard bore them, and brought them back into the guard-chamber.

      ²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? ³⁰And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. ³¹And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David; and his mother's name was Naamah the Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

      15Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat began Abijam to reign over Judah. ²Three years reigned he in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. ³And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him; and his heart was not whole with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father. ⁴Nevertheless for David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem; ⁵because David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that He commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. ⁶Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.

      ⁷And the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. ⁸And Abijam slept with his fathers; and they buried him in the city of David; and Asa his son reigned in his stead.

      ⁹And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel began Asa to reign over Judah. ¹⁰And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom. ¹¹And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. ¹²And he put away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. ¹³And also Maacah his mother he removed from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah; and Asa cut down her image, and burnt it at the brook Kidron. ¹⁴But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was whole with the Lord all his days. ¹⁵And he brought into the house of the Lord the things that his father had hallowed, and the things that himself had hallowed, silver, and gold, and vessels.

      ¹⁶And there was war between Asa and Baasa king of Israel all their days. ¹⁷And Baasa king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 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 Tabrimmon, the son of Hezion, king of Aram, that dwelt at Damascus, saying: ¹⁹'There is a league between me and thee, between my father and thy father; behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasa king of Israel, that he may depart from me.' ²⁰And Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. ²¹And it came to pass, when Baasa heard thereof, that he left off building Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. ²²Then king Asa made a proclamation unto all Judah; none was exempted; and they carried away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasa had builded; and king Asa built therewith Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah.

      ²³Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. ²⁴And Asa slept with his fathers, and was