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43 Solomon rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David, his father, and Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king.

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13 Ignoring the advice the elders had given him, the king gave the people a harsh answer.

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21 On his arrival in Jerusalem, Rehoboam assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—one hundred and eighty thousand elite warriors—to wage war against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, son of Solomon.

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34 This is the account of the sin of the house of Jeroboam for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the face of the earth.

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X. The End of Israel[a]

Israelites Deported. In Hoshea’s ninth year, the king of Assyria took Samaria, deported the Israelites to Assyria, and settled them in Halah, and at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.(A) This came about because the Israelites sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. They venerated other gods, (B)they followed the rites of the nations whom the Lord had dispossessed before the Israelites and those that the kings of Israel had practiced. They adopted unlawful practices toward the Lord, their God. They built high places in all their cities, from guard post to garrisoned town. 10 They set up pillars and asherahs[b] for themselves on every high hill and under every green tree. 11 They burned incense there, on all the high places, like the nations whom the Lord had sent into exile at their coming. They did evil things that provoked the Lord, 12 and served idols, although the Lord had told them: You must not do this.

13 (C)The Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer: Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes, in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your ancestors and which I sent you by my servants the prophets. 14 But they did not listen. They grew as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who had not believed in the Lord, their God.(D) 15 They rejected his statutes, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the warnings he had given them. They followed emptiness and became empty; they followed the surrounding nations whom the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.(E) 16 They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord, their God: they made for themselves two molten calves; they made an asherah; they bowed down to all the host of heaven; they served Baal.(F) 17 (G)They immolated their sons and daughters by fire. They practiced augury and divination. They surrendered themselves to doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and provoked him.

18 (H)The Lord became enraged, and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left. 19 Even the people of Judah did not keep the commandments of the Lord, their God, but followed the rites practiced by Israel. 20 So the Lord rejected the entire people of Israel: he afflicted them and delivered them over to plunderers, finally casting them from his presence.(I) 21 When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam, son of Nebat, king; but Jeroboam lured the Israelites away from the Lord, causing them to commit a great sin.(J) 22 The Israelites imitated Jeroboam in all the sins he committed; they would not depart from them.

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Footnotes

  1. 17:6–41 This brief section is the Deuteronomistic historian’s theological reflection on the causes and aftermath of Assyria’s conquest of the Northern Kingdom. The text contrasts the Israelites, who were deported (v. 6) because they abandoned the worship of the Lord (vv. 7–23), with the foreigners who were brought into the land (v. 24) and undertook, however imperfectly, to worship the Lord alongside their own traditional deities (vv. 25–34a). The last verses recapitulate the apostasy of the Israelites (vv. 34b–40) and the syncretism of the foreigners (v. 41). This is a deliberately disparaging, and not wholly accurate, account of the origin of the Samaritans; it reflects the hostility the Judahites continued to hold toward the inhabitants of the northern territories.
  2. 17:10 Asherahs: see note on Ex 34:13.