5
So he said to them, "Come back to me after three days." And the people departed.
6
Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who stood before his father Solomon while he still lived, saying, "How do you advise me to answer these people?"
7
And they spoke to him, saying, "If you are kind to these people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever."
8
But he rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
9
And he said to them, "What advice do you give? How should we answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, 'Lighten the yoke which your father put on us'?"
10
Then the young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you should speak to the people who have spoken to you, saying, 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter on us'--thus you shall say to them: 'My little finger shall be thicker than my father's waist!
11
And now, whereas my father put a heavy yoke on you, I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!' "
12
So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had directed, saying, "Come back to me the third day."
13
Then the king answered them roughly. King Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders,
14
and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!"
15
So the king did not listen to the people; for the turn of events was from God, that the Lord might fulfill His word, which He had spoken by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.