Kingdom of Judah

¹⁶ When all Israel saw that the king had refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What portion do we have in David, and what inheritance in the son of Jesse? To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, O David!” So the Israelites went home,

¹⁷ but Rehoboam still reigned over the Israelites living in the cities of Judah.

And when Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mobilized the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin—180,000 chosen warriors—to fight against the house of Israel and restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon.

Suddenly, as Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense, there came a man of God from Judah to Bethel by the word of the LORD.

Rehoboam continued to live in Jerusalem, and he built up cities for defense in Judah.

In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

Josiah also did away with the idolatrous priests ordained by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem—those who had burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations, and to all the host of heaven.

Furthermore, Josiah removed the mediums and spiritists, the household gods and idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. He did this to carry out the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had found in the house of the LORD.

‘Let us invade Judah, terrorize it, and divide it among ourselves. Then we can install the son of Tabeal over it as king.’