1In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam, Abijah began to reign over Judah.
2He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.
3Abijah went into battle with an army of brave fighting men, four hundred thousand chosen men. Jeroboam drew up his lines against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, who were mighty and brave.
4Abijah stood up on mount Zemaraim, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, "Listen to me, Jeroboam, and all Israel."
5"Should you not know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, to him and to his sons, by a covenant of salt?"
6"Yet Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, has risen up and rebelled against his lord."
7"Worthless men, the children of Belial, have gathered to him. They made themselves strong against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and soft-hearted and could not stand up to them."
8"And now you think you can stand up to the kingdom of the LORD, which is in the hand of the sons of David. You are a great crowd, and you have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods."
9"Have you not driven out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites? Have you not made priests for yourselves the way the nations of other lands do? Anyone who comes to set himself apart with a young bull and seven rams can become a priest of things that are not gods."
10"But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not left him. The priests who serve the LORD are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites do their work."
11"Every morning and every evening they burn to the LORD burnt sacrifices and sweet incense. They also set out the showbread in order on the pure table, and they light the gold lampstand with its lamps every evening. We keep the charge of the LORD our God, but you have left him."
12"Look, God himself is with us as our captain, and his priests with trumpets to sound the alarm against you. People of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you will not succeed."
13But Jeroboam had sent men around to lie in wait behind them. So Jeroboam's men were in front of Judah, and the ambush was behind them.
14When Judah looked back, the battle was in front of them and behind them. They cried out to the LORD, and the priests sounded the trumpets.
15Then the men of Judah gave a shout. And as the men of Judah shouted, God struck down Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.
16The people of Israel fled before Judah, and God gave them into their hand.
17Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter. Five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell dead.
18So the people of Israel were brought low at that time, and the people of Judah won, because they leaned on the LORD God of their fathers.
19Abijah chased Jeroboam and took cities from him: Bethel with its villages, and Jeshanah with its villages, and Ephrain with its villages.
20Jeroboam did not get his strength back again in the days of Abijah. The LORD struck him, and he died.
21But Abijah grew strong. He married fourteen wives, and was the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.
22The rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the record of the prophet Iddo.