The language is strong, but not too strong. There had been sinners among the leaders of Israel before the days of Jeroboam, but none to equal Jeroboam in his gross iniquities. Jeroboam repudiated the God who had given him the kingdom, serving idols instead. The warnings that had been given, he contemptuously spurned. God’s inheritance had been placed in his hands as a sacred trust, but he failed to be true. The people of Israel were deliberately led into sin, encouraged to turn their backs on the Lord, who had delivered them from Egypt and given them the Promised Land.