When David had grown very old, they covered him with blankets, but he could not keep warm,

but Zadok the priest, Jehoiada's son Benaiah, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David's personal elite forces would have nothing to do with Adonijah.

but he did not invite Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, David's personal elite forces, or his brother Solomon.

"Haven't you heard?" Nathan asked Solomon's mother Bathsheba. "Haggith's son Adonijah has become king and David, our true king, isn't aware of it.

Go right now to King David and ask him, "Your majesty, you promised your servant that "Your son Solomon will certainly become king after me and will sit on my throne," didn't you? So why has Adonijah become king?'

"Call Bathsheba for me," King David replied. So she came in and stood in front of the king.

"King David," Bathsheba said as she bowed low in front of the king with her face to the ground, "your majesty, may you live forever."

"Get me Zadok the priest," King David said, "along with Nathan the prophet, and Jehoiada's son Benaiah." So they were ushered into the king's presence

and David addressed them. "Take your lord's servants, have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon.

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."

"No," Jonathan answered. "Our lord King David has installed Solomon as king.

In addition to all of this, the king's servants have come along to congratulate our lord King David. They've been telling David "May your God make Solomon's reputation even more famous than yours, and may he make his throne greater than yours!' The king has himself bowed in worship on his own bed

As David's time to die approached, he addressed his son Solomon with these words:

After this, David died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried in the City of David.

David had reigned over Israel for 40 years. He reigned in Hebron for seven years and in Jerusalem for 33 years.

Solomon then assumed his father David's throne, and his kingdom was firmly established.

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."

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."

The LORD will repay him for his bloodshed because, without my father David's consent he attacked and murdered two men more righteous and better than he, Ner's son Abner, the commander of Israel's army and Jether's son Amasa, commander of Judah's army.

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."

The king also reminded Shimei, "You know all the evil things that you admit you did to my father David. Therefore the LORD is going to repay you for all of your evil.

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.

Solomon loved the LORD, and lived according to the statutes that his father David obeyed, except that he sacrificed and burned offerings at the high places.

"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.

If you will live life my way, keeping my statutes and my commands, just like your father David did, I'll also increase the length of your life."

King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he learned that Solomon had been anointed king to replace his father, because Hiram had been David's lifelong friend.

"You know that my father David was unable to build a temple dedicated to the LORD his God because he was busy fighting wars all around him until the LORD defeated his enemies.

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:

"Concerning this Temple that you're building, if you live your life according to my statutes, carry out my ordinances, and keep all of my commands, and live according to them, then I will do what I promised to your father David.

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.

Then Solomon gathered together the elders of Israel, including all the heads of the tribes and the leaders of the ancestral households of the Israelis, to meet with him in Jerusalem so they could bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD from Zion, the City of David.

Then Solomon prayed: "Blessed is the LORD God of Israel, who made a commitment to my father David and then personally fulfilled what he had promised when he said:

"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.'

"My father David wanted to build a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.

The LORD told my father David:

"The LORD has brought to fulfillment what he promised, and now here I stand, having succeeded my father David to sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised. I have built the Temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel.

"LORD God of Israel, there is no one like you, God in heaven above or on the earth below, who watches over his covenant, showing gracious love to your servants who live their lives in your presence with all their hearts. It is you, LORD God, who have kept your promise to my father, your servant David, that you made to him. Indeed, you made a commitment to my father David and then personally fulfilled what you had promised today.

"Now therefore, LORD God of Israel, keep your promise that you made to my father, your servant David, when you said, "You will not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants will watch their lives, to live in my presence just as you have lived in my presence.'

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

The following day, Solomon sent the people away as they blessed the king. Then they went back to their tents, rejoicing and glad for all the good things that the LORD had done for his servant David and to his people Israel.

then I'll make your royal throne secure forever, just as I agreed to do so for your father David when I said, "You are to not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

Here is a summary of the conscripted labor that King Solomon required to build the LORD's Temple, his royal palace, the terrace ramparts in the City of David, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

As soon as Pharaoh's daughter arrived from the City of David to live in her house that Solomon had built for her, then he fortified the terrace ramparts in the City of David.

because as Solomon grew older, his wives turned his affections away after other gods, and his heart was not fully as devoted to the LORD his God as his father David's heart had been.

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

I'm not going to do this during your lifetime, for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of your son's control.

For the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, I won't tear away the entire kingdom. I'll leave one tribe for your son to govern."

During David's military campaign against Edom, when his army commander Joab had gone out to bury the dead, he killed every male in Edom.

Later on, Hadad learned in Egypt that David had been buried with his ancestors and that Joab the army commander was dead. So Hadad asked Pharaoh, "Please send me out so I can go back to my own land."

He raised an army and commanded a gang of raiders after David had eliminated those who lived in Zobah. Rezon and his army moved to Damascus, remained there, and Rezon ruled from Damascus.

and this is why he rose in rebellion against the king: Solomon had built up the terrace ramparts in the city of his father David in order to repair a weakness.

"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.

"Nevertheless, I won't take the entire kingdom away from him, but I'll let him reign for the rest of his life, because of my servant David, whom I chose, who obeyed my commandments and statutes,

I'll give one tribe to his son, so my servant David will always have a light shining in my presence in Jerusalem, the city that I chose for myself and where I have placed my name.

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.

This is how I'm going to afflict David's descendants because of what they have done, though I won't do it continuously.'"

Then Solomon died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

When all of Israel saw that the king wasn't listening to them, the people responded to the king's message, "What's the point in following David? We have no inheritance in the descendants of Jesse. Let's go home, Israel! David, take care of your own household!' So Israel left for home.

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

Now when all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent for him and invited him to visit their assembly, where they installed him as king over all of Israel. Nobody (with the sole exception of the tribe of Judah) would align with David's dynasty.

Jeroboam was thinking to himself, "The kingdom is about to return to David's control.

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!'"

"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.

but eventually Rehoboam died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His mother's name had been Naamah the Ammonite, and his son Abijah became king to replace him.

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.

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.

Eventually, Abijah died, as did his ancestors, and he was buried in the City of David. His son Asa succeeded him as king.

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

Then Asa died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried with his ancestors in the City of David, his ancestor. His son Jehoshaphat reigned in his place.

Later, Jehoshaphat died, as did his ancestors, and he was buried alongside his ancestors in the City of David. Jehoram his son became king in his place.