1 Kings 14

1 At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick.

At that time, Jeroboam’s son Abijah became very sick.

2 And 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, which told me that I should be king over this people.

Jeroboam said to his wife, “Disguise yourself, in order that no one will recognize that you are my wife. Then go to Shiloh [city], where the prophet Ahijah [lives]. He is the one who predicted/prophesied that I would become the king of Israel.

3 And take with thee ten loaves, and cracknels, and a cruse of honey, and go to him: he shall tell thee what shall become of the child.

Take with you ten [loaves of] bread and some small flat cakes, and a jar of honey, [and give them] to him. [Tell him about] our son, [and] he will tell you what will happen to him.”

4 And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.

So his wife went to Shiloh, to Ahijah’s house. Ahijah was unable to see, because he was very old and had become blind.

5 And Yhwh said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be, when she cometh in, that she shall feign herself to be another woman.

But [before she got there, ] Yahweh told Ahijah that Jeroboam’s wife was coming to inquire about their son, who was very sick. And Yahweh told Ahijah what he should tell her. When she came to him, she pretended to be another woman.

6 And 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.

But when Ahijah heard her footsteps as she entered the doorway, he said to her, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam! (Why do you pretend that you are someone else?/It will not help you to pretend that you are someone else.) [RHQ] [Yahweh] has given me bad news to tell you.

7 Go, tell Jeroboam, Thus saith Yhwh God of Israel, Forasmuch as I exalted thee from among the people, and made thee prince over my people Israel,

Go and tell Jeroboam that this is what Yahweh, the God whom we Israelis [worship], says to you: ‘I chose you from among the common people and enabled you to become the king of my Israeli people.

8 And 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;

I took [most of] the kingdom of Israel away from David’s descendants and gave it to you. But you have not been like David, who served me [very well]. He obeyed all my commandments very sincerely, doing only things that I considered to be right.

9 But hast done evil above all that were before thee: for thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back:

But you have done more evil things/deeds than all those [who ruled] before you. You have rejected me, and you have caused me to become very angry by making metal images of other gods so that you [and others] could worship them.

10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

‘So, I am going to cause terrible things to happen to your family. I will cause all your male descendants to die, young ones and old ones. I will completely get rid of your family [MTY]. I will get rid of your family [MTY] just like a man completely burns dung [to cook his food].

11 Him 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 Yhwh hath spoken it.

[The corpses of] any members of your family who die in cities will be eaten by dogs. And [the corpses of] any members of your family who die in the open fields will be eaten by vultures. [This will surely happen because] I, Yahweh, have said [that it will happen].’

12 Arise thou therefore, get thee to thine own house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die.

So go back home. And as soon as you enter the city, your son will die.

13 And all Israel shall mourn 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 Yhwh God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.

All the Israeli people will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one of Jeroboam’s family who will be buried [properly], because he is the only one of Jeroboam’s family with whom Yahweh is pleased.

14 Moreover Yhwh shall raise him up a king over Israel, who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day: but what? even now.

Furthermore, Yahweh will appoint for himself a king to rule over Israel who will get rid of Jeroboam’s descendants. And that [will start to happen] today!

15 For Yhwh shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water, and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and shall scatter them beyond the river, because they have made their groves, provoking Yhwh to anger.

Yahweh will punish the people of Israel; he will shake them like [the wind] shakes the reeds [that grow in] a stream. He will expel the Israeli people from this good land that he gave to our ancestors. He will scatter them into countries east of [the Euphrates] River, because they have caused him to become very angry by [worshiping statues of] the goddess Asherah.

16 And he shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin.

Yahweh will abandon the Israeli people because of the sins that Jeroboam committed, sins which led the Israeli people to commit them.”

17 And Jeroboam’s wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;

Jeroboam’s wife returned home to Tirzah [city, the new capital of Israel]. And just as she entered her house, her son died.

18 And they buried him; and all Israel mourned for him, according to the word of Yhwh, which he spake by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

All the Israeli people mourned for him and buried him, which is what Yahweh had told his servant, the prophet Ahijah, would happen.

19 And 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.

Everything else that Jeroboam did, and the record of wars that his [army] fought, and how he ruled, is written in the scroll called ‘The History of the Kings of Israel’.

20 And the days which Jeroboam reigned were two and twenty years: and he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son reigned in his stead.

Jeroboam ruled for 22 years; then he died [EUP] and his son Nadab became king.

21 And 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 Yhwh did choose out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.

Solomon’s son Rehoboam ruled Judah. He was 41 years old when he started to rule, and he ruled for 17 years. He ruled in Jerusalem, which is the city that Yahweh chose out of all the tribes of Israel to be the place where he should be worshiped [MTY]. Rehoboam’s mother’s name was Naamah; she was from the Ammon people-group.

22 And Judah did evil in the sight of Yhwh, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed, above all that their fathers had done.

The people of Judah did things that Yahweh considered to be evil. They caused him to become angry because they committed more sins than their ancestors had committed: They worshiped many other gods instead of worshiping only Yahweh.

23 For they also built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree.

They built places to worship those gods; on high hills, and under big trees they set up [stone] pillars to worship the goddess Asherah.

24 And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which Yhwh cast out before the children of Israel.

Also, there were male prostitutes at these places of worship. The Israeli people did the same disgraceful things that had been done by the people whom Yahweh had expelled while the Israelis were advancing through the land.

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem:

When Rehoboam had been ruling for almost five years, King Shishak of Egypt came [with his army] to attack Jerusalem.

26 And he took away the treasures of the house of Yhwh, 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.

They took away all the valuable things in the temple and in the king’s palace, including the gold shields that Solomon’s [workers] had made.

27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house.

King Rehoboam’s [workers] made bronze shields to replace them and entrusted them to officers who guarded the entrance to the king’s palace.

28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of Yhwh, that the guard bare them, and brought them back into the guard chamber.

Every time that the king went into the temple, those guards carried those shields; and [when he left the temple] they returned the shields to the storeroom.

29 Now 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?

Everything else that Rehoboam did is written [RHQ] in the scroll called ‘The History of the Kings of Judah’.

30 And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days.

There were wars continually between [the armies of] Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead.

Then Rehoboam died [EUP], and he was buried in [the part of Jerusalem called] ‘The City of David’, where his ancestors were buried. Then his son Abijah became the king.