Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Two days ago in our reading, Solomon died in his son Ray Haboam, or Ray, as we're calling

him, took over the throne. Today we launch into the reign of the new King Ray,

we've got a lot of important stuff to cover today,

and it's a big day in Israel's history.

So if you're listening at a speed faster than 1X,

you may want to slow me down,

and you may even want to listen twice to make sure you catch it all.

As soon as Solomon died and his son King Ray took the throne, Gerboam or Jerry, as we're calling him,

came back from hiding in Egypt.

He fled there because Solomon was trying to kill him, because he had received a prophecy

that he would be king over 10 of the tribes.

So Jerry has come back to Israel to see the fulfillment of this prophecy.

Then Jerry gathers a bunch of people to approach King Ray about a problem that had been developing over the last few years, which was,

Solomon had been so involved in his construction projects

that had started to treat his workers like slaves.

The people know it isn't right and they asked King Ray to lighten their load a bit. King Ray confers with some of his

counselors and they say the people are right. But he doesn't like their advice, so he asks his

buddies for a second opinion. But these guys grew up in the palace with him

and they have no idea what it's like to be a regular person who has to do manual labor.

They aren't compassionate and they have no experiential wisdom and leadership. They suggest that he

increased the people's workload. King Ray does what his buddies suggest and the

...