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28 So the king took counsel [and followed bad advice] and made two [a]calves of gold. And he said to the people, “It is too much for you to go [all the way] up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” 29 He set the one [golden calf] in Bethel, and the other he put in [b]Dan. 30 Now this thing became a sin [for Israel]; because the people went to worship before the one [or the other of them] as far as Dan. 31 And Jeroboam also made houses on high places, and he made priests from [c]all people who were not of the sons (descendants) of Levi. 32 Jeroboam held a feast on the fifteenth day of the [d]eighth month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.(A) 33 So he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had devised in his own heart [in defiance of God’s commandments]; and he held a feast for the Israelites and he went up to the altar to burn [e]incense [in defiance of God’s law.]

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Kings 12:28 Cf the incident of the golden calf in the wilderness, and see note Ex 32:4. Jeroboam evidently was convinced that the Israelites would respond to calf idols just as their ancestors had (despite the consequences), and unfortunately he was right.
  2. 1 Kings 12:29 Northernmost city in Jeroboam’s kingdom.
  3. 1 Kings 12:31 Lit the extremities of the people.
  4. 1 Kings 12:32 Jeroboam chose the eighth month to worship idols in competition with the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem during the seventh month at the temple.
  5. 1 Kings 12:33 Or sacrifices.

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