His father had not displeased him at any time in saying, "Why have you done so?" and he was also a very handsome man; and he was born after Absalom.

Then Nathan spoke to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, "Haven't you heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith reigns, and David our lord doesn't know it?

Behold, while you yet talk there with the king, I also will come in after you, and confirm your words."

Bathsheba bowed, and did obeisance to the king. The king said, "What would you like?"

Now, behold, Adonijah reigns; and you, my lord the king, don't know it.

Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders."

Behold, while she yet talked with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

The king swore, and said, "As Yahweh lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity,

Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anointed Solomon. They blew the trumpet; and all the people said, "Long live king Solomon!"

Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating. When Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, "Why is this noise of the city being in an uproar?"

While he yet spoke, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came: and Adonijah said, "Come in; for you are a worthy man, and bring good news."

Also thus said the king, 'Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who has given one to sit on my throne this day, my eyes even seeing it.'"

It was told Solomon, saying, "Behold, Adonijah fears king Solomon; for, behold, he has laid hold on the horns of the altar, saying, 'Let king Solomon swear to me first that he will not kill his servant with the sword.'"

"Moreover you know also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, even what he did to the two captains of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner, and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war on his sash that was about his waist, and in his shoes that were on his feet.

But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be of those who eat at your table; for so they came to me when I fled from Absalom your brother.

"Behold, there is with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by Yahweh, saying, 'I will not put you to death with the sword.'

Now therefore don't hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man; and you will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood."

He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign. However the kingdom is turned around, and has become my brother's; for it was his from Yahweh.

To Abiathar the priest the king said, "Go to Anathoth, to your own fields; for you are worthy of death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you bore the ark of the Lord Yahweh before David my father, and because you were afflicted in all in which my father was afflicted."

So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh, that he might fulfill the word of Yahweh, which he spoke concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

It was told king Solomon, "Joab has fled to the Tent of Yahweh, and behold, he is by the altar." Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go, fall on him."

Yahweh will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn't know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.

The king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and don't go out from there anywhere.

For on the day you go out, and pass over the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall surely die: your blood shall be on your own head."

It happened at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away to Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. They told Shimei, saying, "Behold, your servants are in Gath."

It was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and was come again.

The king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Didn't I adjure you by Yahweh, and warn you, saying, 'Know for certain, that on the day you go out, and walk abroad any where, you shall surely die?' You said to me, 'The saying that I have heard is good.'

So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell on him, so that he died. The kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

In Gibeon Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask what I shall give you."

Solomon said, "You have shown to your servant David my father great loving kindness, according as he walked before you in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with you. You have kept for him this great loving kindness, that you have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.

Now, Yahweh my God, you have made your servant king instead of David my father. I am but a little child. I don't know how to go out or come in.

Solomon awoke; and behold, it was a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and offered up burnt offerings, offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants.

It happened the third day after I delivered, that this woman delivered also. We were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, just us two in the house.

This woman's child died in the night, because she lay on it.

She arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while your handmaid slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead child in my bosom.

When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, it was dead; but when I had looked at it in the morning, behold, it was not my son, whom I bore."

Then the woman whose the living child was spoke to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way kill it!" But the other said, "It shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide it."

Then the king answered, "Give her the living child, and in no way kill it. She is its mother."

Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;

ten head of fat cattle, and twenty head of cattle out of the pastures, and one hundred sheep, besides harts, and gazelles, and roebucks, and fattened fowl.

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, and of birds, and of creeping things, and of fish.

Now therefore command that they cut me cedar trees out of Lebanon. My servants shall be with your servants; and I will give you wages for your servants according to all that you shall say. For you know that there is not among us any who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians."

It happened, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly, and said, "Blessed is Yahweh this day, who has given to David a wise son over this great people."

Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil. Solomon gave this to Hiram year by year.

King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.

He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses; a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home; and Adoniram was over the men subject to forced labor.

The king commanded, and they cut out great stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with worked stone.

It happened in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of Yahweh.

The house, when it was in building, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

The door for the middle side rooms was in the right side of the house: and they went up by winding stairs into the middle [story], and out of the middle into the third.

So he built the house, and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.

So Solomon built the house, and finished it.

He built the walls of the house within with boards of cedar: from the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of fir.

He built twenty cubits on the hinder part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls [of the ceiling]: he built [them] for it within, for an oracle, even for the most holy place.

Within the oracle was [a space of] twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in its height; and he overlaid it with pure gold: and he covered the altar with cedar.

So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold: and he drew chains of gold across before the oracle; and he overlaid it with gold.

In the oracle he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.

The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was it of the other cherub.

For the entrance of the oracle he made doors of olive wood: the lintel [and] door posts were a fifth part [of the wall].

So [he made] two doors of olive wood; and he carved on them carvings of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold; and he spread the gold on the cherubim, and on the palm trees.

So also made he for the entrance of the temple door posts of olive wood, out of a fourth part [of the wall];

and two doors of fir wood: the two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding.

In the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all its parts, and according to all its fashion. So was he seven years in building it.

It was covered with cedar above over the forty-five beams, that were on the pillars; fifteen in a row.

He made the porch of the throne where he was to judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from floor to floor.

The foundation was of costly stones, even great stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits.

Above were costly stones, even cut stone, according to measure, and cedar wood.

King Solomon sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre.

He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill, to work all works in brass. He came to king Solomon, and performed all his work.

He set up the pillars at the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar, and called its name Boaz.

He made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and its height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits encircled it.

Under its brim around there were buds which encircled it, for ten cubits, encircling the sea: the buds were in two rows, cast when it was cast.

It stood on twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set on them above, and all their hinder parts were inward.

It was a handbreadth thick: and its brim was worked like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it held two thousand baths.

Every base had four bronze wheels, and axles of brass; and the four feet of it had supports: beneath the basin were the supports molten, with wreaths at the side of each.

The mouth of it within the capital and above was a cubit: and its mouth was round after the work of a pedestal, a cubit and a half; and also on its mouth were engravings, and their panels were foursquare, not round.

There were four supports at the four corners of each base: its supports were of the base itself.

Solomon left all the vessels [unweighed], because they were exceeding many: the weight of the brass could not be found out.

and the cups, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and the fire pans, of pure gold; and the hinges, both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, [to wit], of the temple, of gold.

Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' [houses] of the children of Israel, to king Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of the city of David, which is Zion.

All the men of Israel assembled themselves to king Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.

There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when Yahweh made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

It came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of Yahweh,

He said, "Blessed is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David your father, and has with his hand fulfilled it, saying,

'Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house, that my name might be there; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.'

"Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

But Yahweh said to David my father, 'Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.

Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come forth out of your body, he shall build the house for my name.'

There I have set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of Yahweh, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt."

who have kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day.

Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant, and for his supplication, Yahweh my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day;

"Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country for your name's sake

"If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name;

yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;'

(for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron);

For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh."

It was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth toward heaven.

"Let your heart therefore be perfect with Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day."

So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, before Yahweh our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days.

It happened, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of Yahweh, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do,