2 Chronicles 11

¹And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king.

²The word of the Lord came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying:

³And they sent and called for him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying,

⁴Thus says the Lord: You shall not go up or fight against your brothers. Return every man to his house, for this thing is from me. So they heard the words of the Lord and turned back from going against Jeroboam.

⁵And he said to them, 'Return to me again after three days.' And the people departed.

⁶He built Bethlehem, Etam, and Tekoa,

⁷Beth-zur, Socoh, and Adullam,

⁸Gath, Mareshah, and Ziph,

⁹Adoraim, Lachish, and Azekah,

¹⁰Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron, which are in Judah and Benjamin, fortified cities.

¹¹He strengthened the fortresses and put in them commanders, and stores of food, oil, and wine.

¹²And in every city he placed shields and spears, and he strengthened them exceedingly. So Judah and Benjamin were his.

¹³And the priests and the Levites who were in all Israel took their stand with him from all their territory.

¹⁴For the Levites left their pasturelands and their holdings and went to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them from serving as priests to the Lord.

¹⁵He appointed for himself priests for the high places, and for the goat-idols, and for the calves that he had made.

¹⁶And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, those who set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers.

¹⁷They strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Rehoboam son of Solomon strong for three years, for they walked in the way of David and Solomon for three years.

¹⁸Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth son of David, and Abihail the daughter of Eliab son of Jesse.

¹⁹She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

²⁰After her he took Maacah the daughter of Absalom, and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith.

²¹Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than all his wives and concubines — he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

²²Rehoboam appointed Abijah son of Maacah as chief among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.

²³He acted wisely and distributed some of his sons throughout all the territories of Judah and Benjamin, to all the fortified cities, and he gave them abundant provisions and sought many wives for them.