- Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?" he asked.
- They replied, "If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants."
- But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.
- 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'?"
- The young men who had grown up with him replied, "Tell these people who have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter'-tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.
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- And king Rehoboam consulted with the old men, that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people?
- And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day, and wilt serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever.
- But he forsook the counsel of the old men, which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him, and which stood before him:
- And he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter?
- And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins.
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