Now King David had become old, {advanced in years}, and they covered him with garments, but he was not warm.

His father did not rebuke him {at any time} [by] saying, "Why did you do so?" Now he was also very handsome of appearance; she had borne him after Absalom.

He said, "You know that the kingship was mine and that all Israel had set their face toward me as king, but the kingship turned around and became my brother's, for it was from Yahweh for him [to have it].

So Solomon banished Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh, thus fulfilling the word which Yahweh had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

When the message came to Joab (now Joab {had supported} Adonijah but {had not supported} Absalom), he fled to the tent of Yahweh and grasped the horns of the altar.

It was told to King Solomon that Joab had fled to the tent of Yahweh and was beside the altar. So Solomon sent [word] to Benaiah son of Jehoiada, saying, "Go and fall upon him."

When Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned,

But the people [were] sacrificing on the high places, for the house for the name of Yahweh had not [yet] been built in those days.

The word was good in the eyes of [the] Lord that Solomon had asked this thing.

When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! When I looked closely at him in the morning, behold, it was not my son whom I had borne."

When all of Israel heard the judgment that the king had rendered, they {stood in awe} of the king, because they realized that the wisdom of God was in him to execute justice.

Solomon had twelve governors over all Israel, and they sustained the king and his palace, {each one was to sustain for each month of the year}.

Ahimaaz [was] in Naphtali; he moreover also had taken Basemath the daughter of Solomon as wife.

For he [was] ruling over all the west of the River from Tiphsah up to Gaza, over all the kings west of the River; and he had peace from every side all around.

Now Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his war chariots and twelve thousand horsemen.

They came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; from all the kings of the earth who had heard [of] his wisdom.

Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him as king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend for David.

Solomon had seventy thousand {common laborers} and eighty thousand stone craftsmen in the hill country.

Besides the chiefs of the officers Solomon had, there were three thousand three hundred having charge over the people who were doing the work.

In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, that is, the eighth month, the house was finished [according] to all his specifications and [according] to all his plans. He had built it in seven years.

All of the doorways and the doorframes [had] four-sided casings, with opening to opposite opening three times.

His house where he would live in the next courtyard on the inside of the porch was like this work, and he would make a house like this porch for the daughter of Pharaoh whom Solomon had taken [as wife].

The great courtyard all around had three rows of dressed stones and a row of cedar beams; for [both] the courtyard of the inner house of Yahweh and for the porch of the house.

and the pots, the shovels, and the bowls for drinking wine. All the vessels of the tent which Hiram had made for King Solomon [for] the house of Yahweh [were] polished bronze.

The king had cast them in the plain of the Jordan with the casting mold [set in] the ground between Succoth and Zarethan.

There was not [anything] in the ark {except} the two tablets of stone which Moses had placed there at Horeb, where Yahweh {made} [a covenant] with the {Israelites} after they went out from the land of Egypt.

Yahweh has carried out his promise which he had made; I have risen in place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel as Yahweh promised, and I have built the house for the name of Yahweh the God of Israel.

On the eighth day, he sent the people away, and they blessed the king, and they went to their tents rejoicing and {in good spirits} because of all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people.

Yahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him in Gibeon.

It happened at the end of twenty years [in] which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the house of the king,

[since] Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with wood of cedar and with wood of cypresses and with the gold according to all his desire, then King Solomon gave twenty cities in the land of the Galilee to Hiram.

So Hiram went out from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, but they were not right in his eyes.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire. He had also killed the Canaanites who were living in the city and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, the wife of Solomon.

Solomon sacrificed three times a year: burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar that he had built to Yahweh, and he offered incense with it before Yahweh; and so he completed the house.

Now the queen of Sheba had heard of the fame of Solomon regarding the name of Yahweh, and she came to test him with hard questions.

When the queen of Sheba observed all the wisdom of Solomon and the house which he had built,

I had not believed the report to be true until I came and my eyes had seen, and behold! The half had not been told to me. {Your wisdom and prosperity surpass} the report that I had heard.

All of the earth [was] seeking the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart.

Solomon gathered chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses. He stationed them in the cities of the chariots and with the king in Jerusalem.

from the nations which Yahweh had said to the {Israelites}, "You shall not {marry them}, and they shall not {marry you}. They will certainly turn your heart after other gods." But Solomon clung to them to love.

He had seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart.

It happened at the time of Solomon's old age that his wives guided his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father [had been].

Yahweh was angry with Solomon, for he had turned his heart from Yahweh, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice.

And he had commanded him concerning this matter not to go after other gods, but he did not keep that which Yahweh commanded.

It had happened that when David was at Edom, Joab the commander of the army went up to bury the slain, and he killed every male in Edom.

For Joab and all Israel had stayed there six months until he exterminated every male in Edom.

But Hadad himself had fled, and some Edomite men from the servants of his father with him, to go to Egypt, when Hadad [was] a young boy.

They had set out from Midian until they came to Paran where they took men from Paran with them and came [to] Egypt, [to] Pharaoh king of Egypt. He gave to him a house and assigned food for him and gave him land.

Now Hadad heard in Egypt that David had slept with his ancestors and that Joab the commander of the army was dead. Then Hadad said to Pharaoh, "Send me away that I may go to my land."

God had [also] raised Rezon the son of Eliada as an adversary against him, who had fled from Hadadezer the king of Zobah, his master.

It happened at that time that Jeroboam went out from Jerusalem, and he accidentally met Ahijah the Shilonite the prophet on the way. Now he had clothed himself with new clothing. While the two of them [were] alone in the field,

Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all of Israel had come to Shechem to make him king.

It happened that Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard [of it] while he was still in Egypt where he had fled from the face of King Solomon, and Jeroboam had lived in Egypt.

Then King Rehoboam consulted with the old men who had been {serving} before Solomon his father when he was alive, saying, "How [are] you advising [me] {to answer this people}?"

But he rejected the advice of the old men, which they gave him, and he consulted with the youngsters who had grown up with him, who were {serving} before him.

Then the youngsters who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you: 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten [it] for us,' you shall say to them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.

Jeroboam and all of the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had spoken: "Return to me on the third day."

Then the king answered all the people harshly, [as] he had rejected the advice of the old men that they had offered.

So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turning of events from Yahweh in order to fulfill his word which Yahweh had spoken through the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

It happened that just when all of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all of Israel. Not one [followed] after the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.

And the king had decided, so he made two golden calves and he said to them, "{You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough}; here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt."

Jeroboam also inaugurated a religious feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the religious feast which was in Judah, and he offered [sacrifices] on the altar. Thus he did in Bethel, by sacrificing to the calves that he had made; and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

He offered [sacrifices] on the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day of the eighth month which his heart had devised. He inaugurated a religious feast for the {Israelites}, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

Then the altar was torn [apart] and the ashes from the altar poured out according to the sign which the man of God had announced by the word of Yahweh.

So he went another way, and he did not return by the way on which he had come to Bethel.

Now a certain older prophet was living in Bethel, and his son came and recounted to him all of the things that the man of God had done that day in Bethel [and] the words he had spoken to the king, and they told them to their father.

Then their father asked them, "{Which way did he go}?" His sons had seen the way which the man of God who had come from Judah had taken.

It happened after he ate food and drank water that he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back.

When the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard, he said, "It [is] the man of God who disobeyed the mouth of Yahweh, and Yahweh has given him to the lion. He tore him in pieces and killed him according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken to him."

He went and found his dead body thrown in the road and a donkey with the lion standing beside it, but the lion had not eaten the corpse nor attacked the donkey.

They buried him and all of Israel mourned for him, according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

But Judah did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and they annoyed him more than their fathers did with their sins that they had committed.

There were also male shrine prostitutes in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}.

and he took the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and he took all the treasures of the king's house. He took the small gold shields that Solomon had made,

He walked in all the sins of his father that he had done before him, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father.

Also, he had Maacah his mother removed from the office of queen mother, [as] she had made a repulsive image for the Asherah. Asa also cut down her repulsive image and burned it in the Wadi Kidron.

Then King Asa proclaimed among all of Israel that there was no one free from obligation, so they carried the stones of Ramah and its wood with which Baasha had built, and King Asa rebuilt Geba in Benjamin with them, and the Mizpah.

It happened that as soon as he became king, he killed all of the house of Jeroboam. There was no one left of Jeroboam who breathed, until he had destroyed him according to the word of Yahweh that he had spoken by the hand of his servant, Ahijah the Shilonite,

because of the sins of Jeroboam that he had committed and that he had caused Israel to commit [and] because of his anger [with] which he had provoked Yahweh the God of Israel.

In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah had become king over all of Israel; [he lived] in Tirzah twenty-four years.

His servant Zimri the commander of half of the chariots conspired against him. Now he had been in Tirzah drinking [himself] drunk in the house of Arza who was over the palace in Tirzah.

The encamping army heard that Zimri had conspired and moreover had killed the king, so they made Omri the commander of the army of Israel king over all Israel in the camp on that day.

And he built an altar to Baal in the house of Baal which he had built in Samaria.

It had happened that when Jezebel killed the prophets of Yahweh, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them {by fifties} in the cave and sustained them [with] food and water.)

So they took the bull that he allowed to them, prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, "O Baal, answer us!" But there was no voice and there was no answer, so they limped about the altar which they had made.

Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come near to me," so all the people came closer to him. He repaired the altar of Yahweh [that had been] destroyed.

Then Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

But these had come out from the city, the servants of the commanders of the provinces, and the army that [was] after them.

The {Israelites} had been mustered and provisioned, and they went to engage them. The {Israelites} encamped opposite them as two flocks of goats, but the Arameans filled the land.

Then those who remained fled to Aphek, to the city, and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men who had remained, so Ben-Hadad fled and went to the innermost rooms of the city.

It happened after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which [was] in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

Then Ahab went to his house, sullen and angry because of the word that Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him [when] he had said, "I will not give to you the inheritance of my ancestors." So he lay on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat [any] food.

She had written in the letters, saying, "Call a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people.

The men of his city and the elders and nobles who were living in his city did according to what Jezebel had sent to them, as [was] written in the letters which she had sent to them.

It happened at the moment Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and died, Jezebel said to Ahab, "Get up, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite which he had refused to give to you for money, for Naboth is not alive, but dead."

Truly, there was no one like Ahab who had sold himself by doing evil in the eyes of Yahweh, whose wife Jezebel urged him on.

Also, he acted very abominably by going after idols like all the Amorites had done whom Yahweh had driven out from before the {Israelites}."

Then the messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, "Please now, the words of the prophet are {unanimously} favorable to the king. Please let your words be as one word with them, and speak favorably."

They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked his blood (now, the prostitutes washed themselves [there]) according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken.