Jeroboam ben Nebat and the Golden Calves

Jeroboam reasoned like a politician: three times a year the people would go up to Jerusalem, see the Temple and a king of David's line — and one day they would not come back. So he cast two golden calves and placed them at the two ends of his kingdom, in Bethel and in Dan, saying, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." He built shrines on high places, appointed priests who were not Levites, invented a festival on the fifteenth of the eighth month — a copy of Sukkot shifted by a month — and posted guards on the roads south.

At Bethel, as the king stood at the altar, a man of God from Judah foretold that a king named Josiah would one day burn the bones of these priests on it. Jeroboam stretched out his hand to seize him and it withered; the altar split. The prophecy came true, almost word for word, three centuries later.

The Levites and the faithful moved south. From then on, "he walked in the way of Jeroboam ben Nebat, who caused Israel to sin" is the verdict passed on king after king in the north.