1As soon as Rehoboam had established his authority as king and had become powerful, he and all his people abandoned the Law of Yahweh. 2In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak the king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, since it had been unfaithful to Yahweh. 3With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horses and countless army of Libyans, Sukkiim and Ethiopians who came from Egypt with him, 4he captured the fortified towns of Judah and reached Jerusalem. Rehoboam and the Judaean captains, at the advance of Shishak, had gathered near Jerusalem; 5to them came Shemaiah the prophet and he said, “Yahweh says this: as you have abandoned me, now I have abandoned you into the hands of Shishak. 6Then the Israelite captains and the king humbled themselves and said, “Yahweh is just!” 7When Yahweh saw that they had humbled themselves, the word of Yahweh came to Shemaiah. “They have humbled themselves; because of this I will not destroy them. In a little while I will grant them deliverance; my anger shall not fall on Jerusalem through the power of Shishak. 8Nevertheless they shall be come his slaves, so that they may come to understand the difference between serving me and serving the kings of foreign countries.”
9Shishak the king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and took all the treasures from the Temple of Yahweh and from the royal palace. He took everything, including the golden shields that Solomon had made; 10in place of them King Rehoboam had bronze shields made, entrusting them to the care of the officers of the guard who guarded the king’s palace gate. 11Whenever the king went to the Temple of Yahweh, the guards would come out carrying them, and return them to the guardroom afterward. 12Since he had submitted to Yahweh, the anger of Yahweh did not completely destroy him. There was still some thing good in Judah.
13King Rehoboam was able to strengthen his position in Jerusalem and to govern. Now Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city chosen by Yahweh out of all the tribes of Israel, as the place where his Name would be. Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah, the Ammonitess. 14He did evil, because he had not set his heart on seeking Yahweh.
15The history of Rehoboam, from first to last, is all recorded in the Annals of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer. There was constant warfare be tween Rehoboam and Jeroboam. 16Then Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David; his son Abijah succeeded him.
