The king also told Abiathar the priest, "Go home to Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I won't kill you today, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David and because you shared all the troubles that my father went through."

"Because you asked for this, and you didn't ask for a long life for yourself, and you didn't ask for the lives of your enemies, but instead you've asked for discernment so you can understand how to govern, look how I'm going to do precisely what you asked. I'm giving you a wise and discerning mind, so that there will have been no one like you before you and no one will arise after you like you.

Then Solomon woke up and realized that he had dreamed a dream. Then he went back to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the LORD's covenant, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and threw a party for all of his servants.

"Not so," claimed the other woman. "The living child is my son, and the dead one is yours." But the first woman said, "Not so! The dead child is your son and the living one is my son." This is what they testified before the king.

Doing this was sinful, because the people traveled as far as Dan to appear before one of their idols.

"Please!" the king begged the man of God, "Ask the LORD your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored for me!" So the man of God asked the LORD, and the king's hand was immediately and fully restored, just like it had been before.

"Instead, you have done more evil than everyone who lived before you. "You have gone out and crafted other gods for yourself. "You made cast images. "You have provoked me to anger. "You have thrown me behind your back.

He practiced the same sins that his father committed before he was born. Unlike his ancestor David, his heart never became devoted to the LORD his God.

Omri practiced what the LORD considered to be evil, doing far more evil than anyone who had reigned before him.

Omri's son Ahab practiced more of what the LORD considered to be evil than anyone who had lived before him.

Ahab also erected an Asherah, doing more to provoke the LORD God of Israel than all of the kings of Israel who had reigned before him.