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And Solomon was looking for a chance to put Jeroboam to death; but he went in flight to Egypt, to Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.

And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.

And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today, caring for them and giving them a gentle answer, then they will be your servants for ever.

Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.

When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.

And this became a sin in Israel; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan.

And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people.

And Jeroboam gave orders for a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar. And in the same way, in Beth-el, he gave offerings to the oxen which he had made, placing in Beth-el the priests of the high places he had made.

He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.

And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.

For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came.

So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,

For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.

Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.

And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.

And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side: the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass.

And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!

For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.

After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places.