¹ Set the trumpet to thy mouth. [He cometh] as an eagle against the house of Jehovah, because they have transgressed my covenant, and rebelled against my law.

² They shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee; [we], Israel.

³ Israel hath cast off good: the enemy shall pursue him.

⁴ They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not; of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.

⁵ Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast [thee] off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will they be incapable of purity?

⁶ For from Israel is this also: -- a workman made it, and it is no God: for the calf of Samaria shall be [broken in] pieces.

⁷ For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; should it sprout, it would yield no meal; if so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up.

⁸ Israel is swallowed up: now are they become among the nations as a vessel wherein is no pleasure.

⁹ For they are gone up [to] Assyria [as] a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

¹⁰ Although they hire among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall begin to be straitened under the burden of the king of princes.

¹¹ Because Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.

¹² I have prescribed unto him the manifold things of my law: they are counted [as] a strange thing.

¹³ They sacrifice flesh [for] the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; Jehovah hath no delight in them. Now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.

¹⁴ For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

¹ In the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah.

² He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³ And Abijah began the war with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand chosen men; and Jeroboam set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, mighty men of valour.

⁴ And Abijah stood up on the top of mount Zemaraim, which is in mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, Jeroboam, and all Israel!

⁵ Ought ye not to know that Jehovah the God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, to him and to his sons [by] a covenant of salt?

⁶ But Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon the son of David, rose up and rebelled against his lord.

⁷ And vain men, sons of Belial, gathered to him and strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and Rehoboam was young and faint-hearted, and did not shew himself strong against them.

⁸ And now ye think to shew yourselves strong against the kingdom of Jehovah in the hand of the sons of David; and ye are a great multitude, and ye have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods.

⁹ Have ye not cast out the priests of Jehovah, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made you priests as the peoples of the lands? whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, he becomes a priest of what is not God.

¹⁰ But as for us, Jehovah is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests that serve Jehovah are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites are at their work:

¹¹ and they burn to Jehovah every morning and every evening burnt-offerings and sweet incense; the loaves also are set in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with its lamps to burn every evening: for *we* keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but *ye* have forsaken him.

¹² And behold, we have God with us at our head, and his priests, and the loud-sounding trumpets to sound an alarm against you. Children of Israel, do not fight with Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.

¹³ But Jeroboam caused an ambush to come about behind them; and they were before Judah, and the ambush behind them.

¹⁴ And Judah looked back, and behold, they had the battle in front and behind; and they cried to Jehovah, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

¹⁵ And the men of Judah gave a shout; and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶ And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand.

¹⁷ And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter; and there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men.

¹⁸ And the children of Israel were humbled at that time, and the children of Judah were strengthened, because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers.

¹⁹ And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him: Bethel with its dependent villages, and Jeshanah with its dependent villages, and Ephron with its dependent villages.

²⁰ And Jeroboam did not recover strength again in the days of Abijah; and Jehovah smote him, and he died.

²¹ But Abijah strengthened himself, and took fourteen wives, and begot twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²² And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways and his sayings, are written in the treatise of the prophet Iddo.