¹⁶ And you, son of man, take one stick, writing on it, For Judah and for the children of Israel who are in his company: then take another stick, writing on it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the children of Israel who are in his company:

⁹ And he got together all Judah and Benjamin and those of Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who were living with them; for numbers of them came to him out of Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

² Say to the children of Israel that they are to give you rods, one for every family, for every chief, the head of his father's house, making twelve rods; let every man's name be placed on his rod.

³ And let Aaron's name be placed on the rod of Levi: for there is to be one rod for the head of every family.

¹⁷ But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.

¹⁹ So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

¹⁶ And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O Israel; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents.

¹⁷ (But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.)

¹⁸ Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

¹⁹ So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

²⁰ Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.

¹¹ And he made the walled towns strong, and he put captains in them and stores of food, oil, and wine.

¹² And in every town he put stores of body-covers and spears, and made them very strong. And Judah and Benjamin were his.

¹³ And the priests and Levites who were in all Israel came together to him from every part of their country.

¹⁴ For the Levites gave up their living-places and their property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons had sent them away, not letting them be priests to the Lord;

¹⁵ And he himself made priests for the high places, and for the images of he-goats and oxen which he had made.

¹⁶ And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, all those whose hearts were fixed and true to the Lord, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to make offerings to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

¹⁷ So they went on increasing the power of the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong for three years; and for three years they went in the ways of David and Solomon.

¹¹ However, some of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun put away their pride and came to Jerusalem.

¹² And in Judah the power of God gave them one heart to do the orders of the king and the captains, which were taken as the word of the Lord.

¹³ So a very great number of people came together at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month.

¹⁴ And they got to work and took away all the altars in Jerusalem, and they put all the vessels for burning perfumes into the stream Kidron.

¹⁵ Then on the fourteenth day of the second month they put the Passover lambs to death: and the priests and the Levites were shamed, and made themselves holy and took burned offerings into the house of the Lord.

¹⁶ And they took their places in their right order, as it was ordered in the law of Moses, the man of God: the priests draining out on the altar the blood given them by the Levites.

¹⁷ For there were still a number of the people there who had not made themselves holy: so the Levites had to put Passover lambs to death for those who were not clean, to make them holy to the Lord.

¹⁸ For a great number of the people from Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not made themselves clean, but they took the Passover meal, though not in the right way. For Hezekiah had made prayer for them, saying, May the good Lord have mercy on everyone