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

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."

The young woman was absolutely beautiful. She served the king and was very useful to him. The king was not sexually involved with her.

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.

He had the support of Zeruiah's son Joab and of Abiathar the priest, who followed Adonijah and assisted him,

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?'

So Bathsheba went to the king in his private room. Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was attending to him.

Were you behind this, your majesty, without letting your servants know who would sit on your majesty's throne after him?"

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

Have Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there as king over Israel. Then sound a trumpet and declare "Long live King Solomon!'

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."

All the people followed after him, playing on wind pipes and so full of joy that the earth shook because of all the noise!

While he was still asking that question, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest arrived, so Adonijah told him, "Come on in, since you're a worthy man and are bringing us good news!"

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him in Gihon, and they just left from there rejoicing, and that's why the city is all in an uproar. That's the noise that you've been hearing!

"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."

So King Solomon sent for him, and he was brought down from the altar. When he had arrived, he fell on his face in front of King Solomon, so Solomon told him, "Go home!"

So act consistently with your wisdom, and don't let him die as a peaceful old man.

"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."

"Yes," he replied. "I have something to ask you about." "Talk," she told him.

So he replied, "You know that the kingdom should have come to me, and that everyone in Israel intended to place me as the next king. However, the kingdom has turned around and now belongs to my brother, because it went to him from the LORD.

So now I'm asking one thing from you. Don't refuse me." "Talk," she told him.

Then he asked her, "Please talk to King Solomon for me, since he won't refuse you. Ask him to give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife."

and told him, "I would like to make a minor request of you. Please don't refuse me." "What is your request, mother?" the king asked her. "I won't turn you down."

So she asked him, "Give Abishag the Shunammite to your brother Adonijah as a wife."

But King Solomon replied to his mother, "Why are you asking Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Why not ask me to give up the kingdom for him, since he's my older brother, and why not ask for Abiathar the priest, and for Zeruiah's son Joab?"

Somebody informed King Solomon, "Joab just ran to the LORD's tent and now he's standing beside the altar!" But Solomon ordered Jehoiada's son Benaiah, "Go kill him!"

The king replied to him, "Do just what he asked. Kill him and bury him so that you may remove from me and from my father's household the guilt that Joab shed needlessly.

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.

Jehoiada's son Benaiah then approached Joab, attacked him, killed him, and had him buried at Joab's home in the wilderness.

The king sent for Shimei and told him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but don't go anywhere from there.

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.'

So the king gave orders to Jehoiada's son Benaiah to go out, attack Shimei, and kill him. That is how the kingdom was established under Solomon's control.

The LORD appeared to Solomon one night in a dream and told him, "Ask me for whatever you want and I'll give it to you."

"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.

so God told him:

Right about then, two prostitutes approached the king and requested an audience with him.

This woman's son died overnight because she laid on top of him.

She got up in the middle of the night, took my son from me while your servant was asleep, and laid him to her breast after laying her dead son next to me.

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!"

The woman whose child was still alive cried out to the king, because her heart yearned for her son. "Oh no, your majesty!" she said. "Give her the living child. Please don't kill him." But the other woman said, "Cut him in half! That way, he'll belong to neither one of us."

The king announced his decision: "Give the living child to the first woman. Don't kill him. She is his mother."

When this decision that the king had handed down was announced, everybody in Israel was amazed at the king, because they all saw that God's wisdom was in him, enabling him to administer justice.

He ruled over everything west of the Euphrates River from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all of the kings west of the Euphrates River, and he enjoyed peace on all sides around him.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

so that he may turn our hearts toward him, so that we may live life his way, keeping his commands, statutes, and ordinances that he gave to our ancestors.

Then the king and all of Israel with him offered sacrifices to the LORD.

So Solomon observed the Festival of Tents at that time, as did all of Israel with him. A large assembly came up from as far away as Lebo-hamath and the Wadi of Egypt to appear in the presence of the LORD our God, not just for seven days, but for seven days after that, a total of fourteen days.

the LORD appeared to Solomon for a second time, just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

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.

Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, but he wasn't happy with them,

so he asked him, "What are these cities that you have given to me, my brother?" That's why these cities were named "the land of Cabal" to this day.

When the queen of Sheba heard about Solomon's reputation with the LORD, she came to test him with difficult questions.

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!

The LORD became angry at Solomon because his heart wandered away from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice

and warned him about this so he would not pursue other gods. But he did not obey what the LORD had commanded,

They left Midian, arrived in Paran, and left from Paran with some men and traveled on to Egypt, where Pharaoh, king of Egypt, gave him a house to live in, assigned a food allotment to him, and gave him some land.

Queen Tahpenes' sister bore him his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh's palace while Genubath lived in Pharaoh's palace with the Pharaoh's own sons.

Pharaoh asked him, "But have you lacked anything from me that would make you want to go back to your own country?" "No," he answered, "but I still really must leave."

Jeroboam was a valiant soldier, and because Solomon observed that the young man was able to get things done, he set him in charge over all of the conscripted labor from the household of Joseph.

During that time, Jeroboam left Jerusalem and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met him on the road. Ahijah had wrapped himself up in a new cloak, and both of them were alone on the open road.

"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.

"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,

Rehoboam traveled to Shechem because all of Israel went there to install him as king.

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."

But Rehoboam ignored the counsel that his elder advisors had given him. Instead, he consulted the younger men who had grown up with him and who worked for him.

But the king gave the people a harsh response, because he was ignoring the counsel that his elders had given him.

King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was in charge of conscripted labor, but all of Israel stoned him to death, and King Rehoboam had to jump in his chariot and flee back in a hurry to Jerusalem.

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.

When he heard the man of God curse the altar in Bethel, the king pointed at the man of God from where the king was standing at the altar. "Seize him!" he ordered. But all of a sudden his hand that he had stretched out dried up, and he could not bring it back to his side!

Now there was an old prophet who lived in Bethel, and his sons went to him and told him everything that the man of God had accomplished that day in Bethel, including the message that he had delivered to the king.

"Which way did he go?" their father asked him, since his sons had observed the way that the man of God had taken to return to Judah from Bethel.

"Saddle my donkey for me!" he ordered. So they saddled the donkey for him

and he rode off after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. "You're the man of God who came from Judah, aren't you?" the old prophet asked him. "I am," he replied.

"Come home with me and have a meal," he told him.

"I'm a prophet like you," the old man replied, "and an angel spoke to me and delivered this message from the LORD: "Bring him back with you to your house and give him food and water.'" But he was lying,

Later, while they were sitting down at the table, a message from the LORD was delivered to the prophet who had brought him back,

After the meal was over, and the man had eaten food and had drunk water, the old prophet saddled the donkey for him that is, for the man of God whom he had brought back.

Not long after the man of God had left, a lion met him along the road and killed him. His body was left lying in the middle of the road with the donkey standing beside it and with the lion also standing next to the body.

The prophet who had brought the man of God back from the road learned about it. "It's the man of God who disobeyed the message from the LORD," he said. "That's why the LORD gave him to that lion, which mauled him and killed him, just as the message from the LORD told rebuke him."

The prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to the city where the old man lived so he could mourn and bury him.

He buried the corpse in his own grave and his family mourned for him, crying out, "Oh, no! My brother!"

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."

Everyone in Israel will mourn for him and will bury him, because he alone from Jeroboam's family will receive a decent burial, because something good was observed in him with respect to the LORD God of Israel out of all the household of Jeroboam!

All of Israel mourned him at his burial, just as the LORD had said when he spoke through Ahijah the prophet.

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.

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.

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.

So Ahijah's son Baasha from the household of Issachar conspired against him and killed Nadab at Gibbethon in Philistia while Nadab and all of Israel were attacking Gibbethon.

Baasha killed him during the third year of the reign of King Asa of Judah and took Nadab's place as king.

Zimri went inside, attacked him, and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, and then became king in Elah's place.

The army at the encampment heard this report: "Zimri has conspired against the king and killed him." So the entire army of Israel made Omri, their commander, king over Israel.

When Zimri observed that the city had been captured, he retreated into the king's palace, set fire to the citadel, and died when the palace burned down around him