1And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king,
2And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim;
3And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,
4Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.
5And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.
6Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?
7And 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.
