“They replied, “If you will be a servant to these people and serve them this day, and if you will respond by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.”
1 Kings 12:7 (BSB)
Context Reading
5Rehoboam answered, “Go away for three days and then return to me.” So the people departed. 6Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How do you advise me to respond to these people?” he asked. 7They replied, “If you will be a servant to these people and serve them this day, and if you will respond by speaking kind words to them, they will be your servants forever.” 8But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the elders; instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and served him. 9He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to these people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”