Study Desk

So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers: let every man go back to his house, for this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the words of the Lord and were turned back from fighting against Jeroboam.

So they went on increasing the power of the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong for three years; and for three years they went in the ways of David and Solomon.

But still they will become his servants, so that they may see how different my yoke is from the yoke of the kingdoms of the lands.

So Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem and took away all the stored wealth of the house of the Lord and the king's house: he took everything away, and with the rest the gold body-covers which Solomon had made.

So King Rehoboam made himself strong in Jerusalem and was ruling there. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was ruling for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

And after driving out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, have you not made priests for yourselves as the people of other lands do? so that anyone who comes to make himself priest by offering an ox or seven sheep, may be a priest of those who are no gods.

But Jeroboam had put some of his men to make a surprise attack on them from the back, so some were facing Judah and others were stationed secretly at their back.

So at that time the children of Israel were overcome, and the children of Judah got the better of them, because they put their faith in the Lord, the God of their fathers.

So Abijah went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David, and Asa his son became king in his place; in his time the land was quiet for ten years.

He said to Judah, Let us make these towns, building walls round them with towers and doors and locks. The land is still ours, because we have been true to the Lord our God; we have been true to him and he has given us rest on every side. So they went on building and all went well for them.

So the Lord sent fear on the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; and the Ethiopians went in flight.

And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

So they came together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule of Asa.

In the thirty-sixth year of the rule of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

So Asa went to rest with his fathers, and death came to him in the forty-first year of his rule.

So the Lord made his kingdom strong; and all Judah gave offerings to Jehoshaphat, and he had great wealth and honour.

His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord; and he went so far as to take away the high places and the wood pillars out of Judah.

And the fear of the Lord was on all the kingdoms of the lands round Judah, so that they made no wars against Jehoshaphat.