Now all his life his father had never gone against him or said to him, Why have you done so? and he was a very good-looking man, and younger than Absalom.

And she said to him, My lord, you took an oath by the Lord your God and gave your word to your servant, saying, Truly, Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom.

As I took an oath to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Certainly Solomon your son will become king after me, seated on my seat in my place; so will I do this day.

And Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, answering the king, said, So be it: and may the Lord, the God of my lord the king, say so.

And while the words were on his lips, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came; and Adonijah said, Come in; for you are a man of good faith and the news which you have for us will be good.

And the king's servants came to our lord King David, blessing him and saying, May God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and the seat of his authority greater than your seat; and the king was bent low in worship on his bed.

Then the king said, May the God of Israel be praised, who has given one of my seed to be king in my place this day and has let my eyes see it.

And all the guests of Adonijah got up in fear and went away, every man to his place.

And Adonijah himself was full of fear because of Solomon; and he got up and went to the altar, and put his hands on its horns.

And Solomon said, If he is seen to be a man of good faith, not a hair of him will be touched; but if any wrongdoing is seen in him, he is to be put to death.

And keep the orders of the Lord your God, walking in his ways, keeping his laws and his orders and his rules and his words, as they are recorded in the law of Moses; so that you may do well in all you do and wherever you go,

But be good to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be guests at your table; for so they came to me when I went in flight from Absalom your brother.

And Bath-sheba said, Good! I will make your request to the king.

So Bath-sheba went to King Solomon to have talk with him on Adonijah's account. And the king got up to come to her, and went down low to the earth before her; then he took his place on the king's seat and had a seat made ready for the king's mother and she took her place at his right hand.

Then King Solomon took an oath by the Lord, saying, May God's punishment be on me if Adonijah does not give payment for these words with his life.

And to Abiathar the priest the king said, Go to Anathoth, to your fields; for death would be your right reward; but I will not put you to death now, because you took up the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and you were with him in all his troubles.

Then Shimei got up, and making ready his ass, he went to Gath, to Achish, in search of his servants; and he sent and got them from Gath.

In Gibeon, Solomon had a vision of the Lord in a dream by night; and God said to him, Say what I am to give you.

And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David my father; and I am only a young boy, with no knowledge of how to go out or come in.

Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people?

And God said to him, Because your request is for this thing, and not for long life for yourself or for wealth or for the destruction of your haters, but for wisdom to be a judge of causes;

And she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was sleeping; and she took it in her arms and put her dead child in my arms.

And when I got up to give my child the breast, I saw that it was dead; but in the morning, looking at it with care, I saw that it was not my son.

Then he said, Get me a sword. So they went and put a sword before the king.

And the king said, Let the living child be cut in two and one half given to one woman and one to the other.

Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two.

And news of this decision which the king had made went through all Israel; and they had fear of the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to give decisions.

And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside.

You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet.

But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; no one is making trouble, and no evil is taking place.

And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name.

So now, will you have cedar-trees from Lebanon cut down for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you payment for your servants at whatever rate you say; for it is common knowledge that we have no such wood-cutters among us as the men of Zidon.

My men will take them down from Lebanon to the sea, where I will have them corded together to go by sea to whatever place you say, and I will have them cut up there so that you may take them away; as for payment, it will be enough if you give me food for my people.

Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number;

By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone.

Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did the work of cutting them, and put edges on them, and got the wood and the stone ready for the building of the house.

(And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)

On the olive-wood doors were cut designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, all of them, with the doors, plated with gold.

All these buildings were made, inside and out, from base to crowning stone, and outside to the great walled square, of highly priced stone, cut to different sizes with cutting-instruments.

Overhead were highly priced stones cut to measure, and cedar-wood.

Then King Solomon sent and got Hiram from Tyre.

The mouth of it inside the angle-plate was one cubit across; it was round like a pillar, a cubit and a half across; it had designs cut on it; the sides were square, not round.

The weight of all these vessels was not measured, because there was such a number of them; it was not possible to get the weight of the brass.

And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to David my father, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying,

Now it was in the heart of David my father to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

And the Lord has made his word come true; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

Said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on the earth; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts.

So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel before me, if only your children give attention to their ways, walking before me as you have done.

So now, O God of Israel, it is my prayer that you will make your word come true which you said to your servant David, my father.

But is it truly possible that God may be housed on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place; how much less this house which I have made!

Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant, O Lord God, and to his prayer for grace; give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant sends up to you this day;

Then give ear in heaven, so that the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.

For you made them separate from all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, as you said by Moses your servant, when you took our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.

Then Solomon, after making all these prayers and requests for grace to the Lord, got up from his knees before the altar of the Lord, where his hands had been stretched out in prayer to heaven;

Now may the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; let him never go away from us or give us up;

And may these my words, the words of my prayer to the Lord, be before the Lord our God day and night, so that he may see right done to his servant and to his people Israel, day by day as we have need.

So that all the peoples of the earth may see that the Lord is God, and there is no other.

Then let your hearts be without sin before the Lord our God, walking in his laws and keeping his orders as at this day.

So Solomon and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, (for the people had come together from the way into Hamath to the river of Egypt,) kept the feast at that time before the Lord our God, for two weeks, even fourteen days.

And on the eighth day he sent the people away, and, blessing the king, they went to their tents full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David his servant and to Israel his people.

Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples.

And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord their God, who took their fathers out of the land of Egypt; they took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why the Lord has sent all this evil on them.

And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

May the Lord your God be praised, whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; because the Lord's love for Israel is eternal, he has made you king, to be their judge in righteousness.

And from all over the earth they came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

And Solomon's horses came from Egypt and from Kue; the king's traders got them at a price from Kue.

A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty; they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

For it came about that when Solomon was old, his heart was turned away to other gods by his wives; and his heart was no longer true to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom, the disgusting god of the Ammonites.

Then Solomon put up a high place for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, in the mountain before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the disgusting god worshipped by the children of Ammon.

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision;

(For Joab and all Israel were there six months till every male in Edom had been cut off;)

And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah:

He got some men together and made himself captain of a band of outlaws; and went to Damascus and became king there.

The way in which his hand came to be lifted up against the king was this: Solomon was building the Millo and making good the damaged parts of the town of his father David;

And Jeroboam was an able and responsible man; and Solomon saw that he was a good worker and made him overseer of all the work given to the sons of Joseph.

Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.

Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.

But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings.

Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.

And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.

And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.

But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place;

Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king.

Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,

And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord,

Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said.

Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping.

And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones.

And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.

So Jeroboam's wife did so, and got up and went to Shiloh and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah was unable to see, because he was very old.

And the Lord had said to Ahijah, The wife of Jeroboam is coming to get news from you about her son, who is ill; give her such and such an answer; for she will make herself seem to be another woman.

Go, say to Jeroboam, These are the words of the Lord, the God of Israel: Though I took you from among the people, lifting you up to be a ruler over my people Israel,

And all Israel will put his body to rest, weeping over him, because he only of the family of Jeroboam will be put into his resting-place in the earth; for of all the family of Jeroboam, in him only has the Lord, the God of Israel, seen some good.