“Your father made us work too hard. ¹  Now if you lighten the demands he made and don’t make us work as hard, we will serve you.” ² 

He asked them, “How do you advise me ¹  to respond to these people who said to me, ‘Lessen the demands your father placed on us’?” ² 

The young advisers with whom Rehoboam ¹  had grown up said to him, “Say this to these people who have said to you, ‘Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden.’ ²  Say this to them: ‘I am a lot harsher than my father! ³