22. “Why?” the king asked. “Have I failed to give you something? Is that why you want to go back home?”“Just let me go,” Hadad answered the king. And he went back to his country.As king of Edom, Hadad was an evil, bitter enemy of Israel.
23. God also caused Rezon son of Eliada to turn against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master, King Hadadezer of Zobah,
24. and had become the leader of a gang of outlaws. (This happened after David had defeated Hadadezer and had slaughtered his Syrian allies.) Rezon and his men went and lived in Damascus, where his men made him king of Syria.
25. He was an enemy of Israel during the lifetime of Solomon.
26. Another man who turned against King Solomon was one of his officials, Jeroboam son of Nebat, from Zeredah in Ephraim. His mother was a widow named Zeruah.
27. This is the story of the revolt.Solomon was filling in the land on the east side of Jerusalem and repairing the city walls.
28. Jeroboam was an able young man, and when Solomon noticed how hard he worked, he put him in charge of all the forced labour in the territory of the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.
29. One day, as Jeroboam was travelling from Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah, from Shiloh, met him alone on the road in the open country.
30. Ahijah took off the new robe he was wearing, tore it into twelve pieces,
31. and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself, because the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, ‘I am going to take the kingdom away from Solomon, and I will give you ten tribes.
32. Solomon will keep one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city I have chosen to be my own from the whole land of Israel.