Kebra Nagast

How Rehohoam Reigned of my father who begot me. None shall diminish for and the labour forced the service, nay it shall be you And if ye will increased for you in every particular. not do my command, I will make your cattle my plunder, and your children shall be captives, and my knife And I will seize your and your fields, and your plantations, and your wells, and your gardens, and your lands, and your fruit (or, crops), and I will bind your honourable ones in chains of iron, and your riches shall [provide] food for my servants, and your women shall be for the adornment of the house of my nobles. And I will not alter this my decision, and will not diminish it, and I will neither make it to be a lie nor to have no effect ; and I will carry it out quickly, and will write it down for ever. For the whole of this land was given to David my grandfather for his kingdom, and to my father Solomon after him. And [God] hath given it to me after my fathers as to them, and I will make yon to serve me as ye served them and now take counsel and of slaughter shall consume you. cities ; obey me.' ' And thus also did Rehoboam speak unto the elders of And the people all rose up together in their Israel. full house[s], O Israel. " Get back to [your] Have we none else whom we can number, and they said, make king save in the house of Judah and in the house of Benjamin ? We will reject their houses and the men of both of them, and we will make as our king and governor the man whom we wish for and in whom our soul delighteth." And they took up their weapons of and in fled a war, body, and came to the city of Samaria of Beth Efrata, where they took counsel and were gathered together in a body. And the house of Israel cast lots among themselves so that they might make the man whom king they chose from the house of the father of the man wherein the lot fell. And the lot fell on the house of Ephraim, on the son of Nabat, and they 119