⁷ They replied, “If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer,^(A) they will always be your servants.”

⁸ But Rehoboam rejected^(B) the advice the elders^(C) gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. ⁹ He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”