- 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.
|
- King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, "How do you counsel me to answer this people?"
- Then they spoke to him, saying, "If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever."
- But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him.
- So he said to them, "What counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, 'Lighten the yoke which your father put on us'?"
- The young men who grew up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you, saying, 'Your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us!' But you shall speak to them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins!
|