so his servants suggested to him, "Let's look for a young virgin woman to take care of you, your majesty. She will be of use to you if you have her lie down near you so that your majesty may keep warm."

Meanwhile, about this time Haggith's son Adonijah began to seek a reputation for himself and decided, "I'm going to be king!" So he prepared chariots, cavalry, and 50 soldiers to serve as a security detail to guard him.

His father had never challenged him at any time during his life by asking him, "Why are you acting like this?" Adonijah was very handsome and had been born after Absalom.

Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fatted cattle by the Serpent Stone near En-rogel, inviting all of his relatives, the king's sons, and all of the men of Judah who worked for the king,

Otherwise, as soon as your majesty is laid to rest with his ancestors, my son Solomon and I will be branded as traitors."

When he had been ushered into the presence of the king, Nathan bowed low in front of the king with his face to the ground and asked, "Your majesty, did you say "Adonijah will be king after me and will sit on my throne'?

I certainly did tell you in the name of the LORD God of Israel, "Your son Solomon will be king after me and will sit on my throne in my place.' I'm certainly going to make this happen today!"

After this, you are to follow him back here, and he is to come and sit on my throne and take my place as king, because I've appointed him to be Commander-in-Chief over Israel and Judah."

As the LORD has been with your majesty the king, so may he be with Solomon. May he make his throne greater than the throne of your majesty, King David."

and said "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has provided someone to sit on my throne today. I've seen it with my own eyes!'"

"If he's done nothing wrong, not a hair of his head will be harmed," Solomon replied. "But if we find evil in him, he's a dead man."

"I'm headed down the road that everyone who lives on earth travels, so be strong and demonstrate that you're a grown man

by keeping the charge that the LORD your God entrusted to you. Live life his way, keep his statutes, his commands, his ordinances, and his testimonies, just as they're written down in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in everything you do and wherever you go,

and so that the LORD may fulfill his promise that he spoke about me when he said, "If your sons pay attention to how they live by walking truthfully in my presence with all their heart and with all their soul, you will never lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

Be gracious to the descendants of Barzillai the Gileadite, and provide for them in your household, because they helped me when I had to run from your brother Absalom.

"Pay attention now! You have with you Gera's son Shimei the descendant of Benjamin from Bahurim. He cursed me violently that day when I had to leave for Mahanaim. When he visited me at the Jordan River, I made an oath to the LORD and told him, "I won't execute you with a sword.'

But don't let him off unpunished, since you're a wise man and you'll know what you need to do to him. Find a way that he dies in his old age by shedding his blood."

So Bathsheba went to talk to King Solomon for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, bowed to her, and sat down on his throne. He ordered a throne be set in place for his mother. She sat on a throne to his right

Then King Solomon took this oath in the name of the LORD: "May God do so to me, and more besides, if Adonijah hasn't endangered his life by bringing up this subject.

Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of my father David, and who has established a dynasty, just like he promised, Adonijah will surely be executed today."

May their blood be repaid to Joab and to his descendants forever, and may there be peace shown from the LORD forever to David, to his descendants, to his household, and to his throne."

If you ever leave and cross the Kidron Brook, you can be sure that you'll die. You'll be responsible for your own death."

so the king sent for Shimei and asked him, "Didn't I make a promise to the LORD and warn you, "The day you leave and go anywhere else, you can be sure you'll die'? And you told me, "What your majesty has decreed is acceptable to me.'

But King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will be established in the presence of the LORD forever."

Later, Solomon intermarried with the family of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt by taking his daughter and bringing her to the City of David to live until he had completed building his own palace, the LORD's Temple, and the wall around Jerusalem.

"You have demonstrated abundant gracious love to your servant David, my father, as he lived in your presence truthfully, righteously, and uprightly in his heart. In addition, you have kept on showing this abundant gracious love by giving him a son to sit on his throne today. Now, LORD my God, you have set me as king to replace my father David, but I'm still young. I don't have any leadership skills.

Your servant lives in the midst of your people that you have chosen, a great people that is too numerous to be counted.

So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil. Otherwise, how will I be able to govern this great people of yours?"

I'm also giving you what you haven't requested: both riches and honor, so that no other king will be comparable to you during your lifetime.

The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the light of day, he turned out not to be my son whom I had borne!"

and Uri's son Geber served in the territory of Gilead, the territory formerly ruled by King Sihon of the Amorites and King Og of Bashan (he was the only governor over that territory).

Now therefore please order that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, because you know there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians do."

As soon as Hiram received the message from Solomon, he became so ecstatic that he exclaimed, "Blessed be the LORD today, who has given David a wise son to rule this great people!" Then he sent this message to Solomon:

My servants will transport them from Lebanon to the sea, where we'll make them into rafts and float them by sea to the port that you tell me to send them. We'll have them prepared for transport there and then you can carry them from there. You can meet my needs by providing provisions for my household."

The king specified that large, expensive stones be quarried so the foundation of the Temple could be laid with cut stones.

As a result, Solomon's builders worked with Hiram's builders, accompanied by the Gebalites, to quarry the stone and to prepare the timber and other stone for the Temple's construction.

The Temple was constructed of stone precut at the quarry so that no hammer, axe, or any other iron implement would be heard in the Temple while it was being built.

A passageway to the side chamber was constructed on the south side of the Temple by which people could ascend winding stairs to the middle story, then from there to the third story.

Cedar carvings in the form of gourds and blooming flowers covered the entire interior of the Temple so that no stone could be seen.

He finished the Temple by overlaying it entirely with gold, including overlaying with gold the whole altar that was by the inner sanctuary.

He constructed the Judgment Hall for the throne room where he would be ruling, paneling it with cedar from floor to ceiling.

So the great court was surrounded by three rows of cut stone, along with a row of cedar beams, just like the inner court of the LORD's Temple and the porch surrounding the Temple.

with the capitals on the two pillars covered by 200 pomegranates in rows around both the capitals above and adjoining the rounded latticework.

He made ten identical water carts by using the same plans, castings, and shapes for all of them.

Thus all the work that King Solomon performed in the LORD's Temple was finished. Then Solomon brought in the articles that had been dedicated by his father David, including silver, gold, and other utensils, and he placed them into storage in the treasuries of the LORD's Temple.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel that had assembled to be with him stood in front of the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they were neither counted nor inventoried.

The poles extended so far that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from outside. They remain there to this day.

"From the day I brought out my people Israel from Egypt I never chose a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a temple where my name might reside. I have chosen David to be over my people Israel.'

"Therefore, since you determined to build a temple for my name, you acted well, because it was your choice to do so. Nevertheless, you are not to build the Temple, but your son who will be born to you is to build a temple for my name.'

"Now therefore, God of Israel, may your promise that you made to your servant David my father be fulfilled"

Pay attention to the prayer of your servant and to his request, LORD my God, and listen to the cry and prayer that your servant is praying in your presence today.

then listen in heaven, act, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked by bringing back to him the consequences of his choices and by justifying the righteous by recompensing him according to his righteousness.

whatever prayer or request is made, no matter whether it's made by a single man or by all of your people Israel, each praying out of his own hurting heart and anguish and stretching out his hands toward this Temple,

then hear in heaven where you reside, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the people of the earth may know your name, fear you as do your people Israel, and so they may know that this Temple that I have built is called by your name.

forgiving your people who have sinned against you, along with their transgressions by which they have transgressed against you.

May the LORD our God be with us, just as he was with our ancestors. May he never leave us or abandon us,

Now let your heart be completely devoted to the LORD our God, to live according to his statutes and to keep his commands, as we are doing today."

The LORD told him: "I've heard your prayer and your request that you made to me. I have consecrated this Temple that you have built by placing my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there continuously.

"This Temple will become a pile of ruins. Everyone who passes by it will be so astounded that they will ask, "Why did the LORD do this to this land and to this Temple?'

the food set at his table, his servants who sat with him, his ministers in attendance and how they were dressed, his personal staff and how they were dressed, and even his personal stairway by which he went up to the LORD's Temple, she was breathless!

And blessed be the LORD your God, who is delighted with you! He set you in place on the throne of Israel because the LORD loved Israel forever. That's why he made you to be king, so you could carry out justice and implement righteousness."

All of King Solomon's drinking vessels were made of gold, and all the vessels in his palace in the Lebanon forest were made of pure gold. None were of silver, because silver was never considered to be valuable during Solomon's lifetime,

because the king had ships that sailed to Tarshish accompanied by Hiram's ships. Once every three years ships from Tarshish returned, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.

all of them from nations that the LORD had ordered the Israelis, "You are not to associate with them and they are not to associate with you, because they will most certainly turn your affections away to follow their gods." Solomon became deeply attached to them by falling in love.

Solomon practiced what the LORD considered to be evil by not fully following the LORD, as had his father David.

"Pay attention! I'm going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon's control and give you ten tribes. I'll leave him one tribe for the sake of my servant David and one tribe for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I chose from all of the tribes of Israel.

I'm doing this because they have abandoned me and worshipped that Sidonian goddess Astarte, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom. They haven't lived my way by doing what I consider to be right and observing my statutes and my ordinances, like his father David did.

I'm going to take you and have you reign over whatever you desire. You will be king over Israel.

If you listen to everything that I command you to do, and if you live your life my way, and if you do what I consider to be right by observing my statutes and my commandments, just like my servant David did, then I will be with you, I will build an enduring dynasty for you, just like I did for David, and I'll give Israel to you.

They advised him, "If today you are a servant, you will serve this people by answering them and speaking kindly to them. Then they will serve you forever."

"This is what you should tell these people who asked you "Your father made our burden heavy, but you must make it lighter for us!'" the young men who grew up with Rehoboam replied. "Tell them, "My little finger will be thicker than my father's whole body!

The king would not listen to the people, because the turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill his prediction that the LORD spoke by means of Ahijah the Shilonite to Nebat's son Jeroboam

That's how Israel came to be in rebellion against David's dynasty to this day.

Right when Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn some incense, a man of God arrived in Bethel from Judah in obedience to a command from the LORD.

He cursed the altar in this message from the LORD: "Hey altar! Hey altar! This is what the LORD says: "Pay attention to this! A son is going to be born in David's dynasty. His name will be Josiah. He will sacrifice the priests who burn incense on you in these high places. Human bones will be burned on you!'"

Later that same day, he gave them a special display of power of what was to come when he said, "Here's proof that the LORD has decreed this: Look! This altar will be split apart and the ashes that are on it will spill out."

"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.

because the LORD commanded me specifically, "You are not to eat bread, drink water, or return by the way that you came to arrive here!'"

Then he left, returning a different way than the one by which he had traveled to Bethel.

But he replied, "I can't go back with you to your home, be in your company, or even eat food or drink water with you in this place,

because I've been given a command in the form of this message from the LORD: "You are to eat no food, drink no water, and do not return to Judah by traveling the way by which you go there.'"

but instead you returned to eat and drink in the very place that he told you "Eat no food and drink no water," your body will not be buried in the same grave as your ancestors.'"

When some men passed by and noticed the body lying in the middle of the road and the lion standing beside the body, they went straight to the city and told what had happened in the city where the old prophet lived.

because what he predicted by a message from the LORD against the altar in Bethel and the temples built in the high places of the cities of Samaria will certainly come about."

Despite everything that happened, Jeroboam never did repent of his evil practices. Instead, he appointed even more people to act as priests for the high places. Anyone who wanted to be a priest was ordained to be a priest in the high places.

so Jeroboam suggested to his wife, "Get up, disguise yourself so that no one will know that you're Jeroboam's wife, and go to Shiloh where the prophet Ahijah lives. He's the one who told me that I would be king over this people.

Take ten loaves with you, some cakes, and a jar of honey and go visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy."

Meanwhile, the LORD had spoken to Ahijah, "Be on your guard! Jeroboam's wife is coming to ask you about her son, because he is ill. You're to say such and such to her. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else!"

"I tore the kingdom away from David's dynasty. "Then I gave it to you. But you have not lived like my servant David, who kept my commands with all his heart, and did only what I considered to be right.

He will give up Israel because of Jeroboam's sins that he committed and by which Jeroboam caused Israel to sin."

Judah practiced what the LORD considered to be evil. They did more to provoke him to jealousy than their ancestors had ever done by committing the sins that they committed.

Nevertheless, for the sake of David, the LORD his God maintained a lamp for David in Jerusalem by raising up his son after him so that Jerusalem would be established,

because David had practiced what the LORD considered to be right. He never avoided anything that the LORD had commanded him during his entire lifetime, except for the case of Uriah the Hittite.

Asa practiced what the LORD considered to be right, just like his ancestor David.

King Baasha of Israel invaded Judah and interdicted Ramah by building fortifications around it so no one could enter or leave to join King Asa of Judah.

practicing what the LORD considered to be evil, living the way his father did, committing sins, and leading Israel to sin.

He practiced what the LORD considered to be evil, living like Jeroboam did and leading Israel into sin.

Anyone from Baasha's household who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone of his who dies in the field the birds of the sky will eat."

In addition, a message from the LORD came through Hanani's son Jehu the prophet against Baasha and his household, not only because of all of the things that Baasha did that the LORD considered to be evil, including provoking the LORD to anger by what he did and by being like the household of Jeroboam, but also because Baasha had destroyed Jeroboam's household.

because of the sins that he committed by doing what the LORD considered to be evil, living like Jeroboam did, and sinning so as to lead Israel into sin.