CHAPTER 14
1 In that time Abijah, son of Jeroboam, was sick.
2 And Jeroboam said to his wife, Rise thou up, and change clothing, that thou be not known, that thou art the wife of Jeroboam; and go thou into Shiloh, where Ahijah, the prophet, is, which spake to me, that I should reign upon this people.
3 Also take thou in thine hand ten loaves, and a cake, and a vessel of honey, and go thou to him; for he shall show to thee, what shall befall to this child.
4 The wife of Jeroboam did as he said, and she rose up, and went into Shiloh, and came into the house of Ahijah; and Ahijah might not see, for his eyes dimmed for eld age.
5 Forsooth the Lord said to Ahijah, Lo! the wife of Jeroboam entereth, that she counsel with thee on her son, which is sick; thou shalt speak these and these things to her. Therefore when she had entered, and had feigned herself to be that which she was not,
6 Ahijah heard the sound of the feet of her entering by the door, and he said, Enter thou, the wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thee to be another? Forsooth I am sent to be an hard messenger, that is, telling hard things, to thee.
7 Go thou, and say to Jeroboam, The Lord God of Israel saith these things, For I enhanced thee from the midst of the people, and I gave thee to be duke on my people Israel,
8 and I cutted the realm of the house of David, and I gave it to thee, and thou were not as my servant David, that kept my behests, and pursued [or followed] me in all his heart, and did that that was pleasant [or pleasing] in my sight;
9 but thou hast wrought evil, over all men that were before thee, and madest to thee alien gods, and welled those together, that thou shouldest excite me or stir me to wrathfulness, soothly thou hast cast forth me behind thy back.
10 Therefore lo! I shall bring in evils upon the house of Jeroboam, and I shall smite the house of Jeroboam unto a pisser to the wall, and unto him that is imprisoned, and the last in Israel; and I shall cleanse the relics, or remnants, of the house of Jeroboam, as dung is wont to be cleansed unto purity, either cleanness*;
11 soothly dogs shall eat them, that shall die of the house of Jeroboam in the city; and birds of the air shall devour them, that shall die in the field; for the Lord spake.
12 Therefore rise thou, and go into thine house; and in that entering of thy feet into the city, the child shall die.
13 And all Israel shall bewail him, and shall bury him; for this child alone of Jeroboam shall be borne into the sepulchre, for a good word is found on him of the Lord God of Israel, in the house of Jeroboam.
14 Forsooth the Lord shall ordain to him a king upon Israel, that shall smite the house of Jeroboam, in this day, and in this time, that is, of nigh;
15 and the Lord God of Israel shall smite, as a reed in the water is wont to be moved; and he shall draw out Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, and he shall winnow them over the flood, for they made to them maumet woods, that they should stir the Lord to ire.
16 And the Lord God shall betake Israel to his enemies, for the sins of Jeroboam, that sinned, and made Israel to do sin.
17 Therefore the wife of Jeroboam rose, and went, and came into Tirzah; and when she entered into the thresh-old of the house, the child was dead.
18 And they buried him; and all Israel bewailed him, by the word of the Lord, which he spake in the hand of his servant, Ahijah the prophet.
19 Forsooth, lo! the residue of the words of Jeroboam, how he fought, and how he reigned, be written in the book of [the] words of the days of [the] kings of Israel.
20 Forsooth the days, in which Jeroboam reigned, be two and twenty years; and Jeroboam slept with his fathers, and Nadab, his son, reigned for him.
21 Forsooth Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, reigned in Judah; Rehoboam was of one and forty years, when he began to reign, and he reigned seven-teen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord chose of all the lineages of Israel, that he should set [or put] his name there. And the name of his mother was Naamah the Ammonite.
22 And Judah did evil before the Lord, and they stirred him to ire on all things, which their fathers did in their sins, by which they sinned.
23 For also they builded to them-selves altars, and images, and woods, on each high hill, and under each tree full of boughs.
24 But also men of women’s condi-tions or womanish men were in the land, and they did all the abomin-ations of heathen men, which the Lord all-brake before the face of the sons of Israel.
25 Forsooth in the fifth year of the realm of Rehoboam, Shishak, the king of Egypt, went up into Jerusalem;
26 and he took the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the king’s treasures, and he ravished all things; also he ravished the golden shields which Solomon made.
27 For which king Rehoboam made brazen shields, and gave those [or them] into the hands of [the] dukes of shield-makers, and of them that waked [or watched] before the door of the house of the king.
28 And when the king entered into the house of the Lord, they that had office to go before, bare those [or them], and they bare those again to the place of arms [or the armory place] of [the] shield-makers.
29 Forsooth, lo! the residue of the words of Rehoboam, and all things which he did, be written in the book of [the] words of [the] days of [the] kings of Judah.
30 And battle was betwixt Rehoboam and Jeroboam, in all days.
31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with them in the city of David. And the name of his mother was Naamah the Ammonite; and Abijam, his son, reigned for him.
* CHAPTER 14:10 That is, dung is not cleansed in itself, but the place in which the dung is, is cleansed, when the dung is cast out.