Now King David was old and far on in years; and though they put covers over him, his body was cold.

So his servants said to him, Let search be made for a young virgin for my lord the king, to take care of him and be waiting on him; and you may take her in your arms, and so my lord the king will be warm.

So after searching through all the land of Israel for a fair young girl, they saw Abishag the Shunammite, and took her to the king.

Then Adonijah put to death sheep and oxen and fat beasts by the stone of Zoheleth, by En-rogel; and he sent for all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah, the king's servants, to come to him:

But he did not send for Nathan the prophet and Benaiah and the other men of war and Solomon his brother.

And has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the sons of the king, and Abiathar the priest, and Joab, the captain of the army; but he has not sent for Solomon your servant.

And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, waiting for you to say who is to take the place of my lord the king after him.

For as things are, it will come about, when my lord the king is sleeping with his fathers, that I and Solomon my son will be made outlaws.

Because today he has gone down and has put to death oxen and fat beasts and sheep in great numbers, and has sent for all the king's sons to come to him, with the captains of the army and Abiathar the priest; and they are feasting before him and crying, Long life to King Adonijah!

But me, your servant, and Zadok the priest, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and your servant Solomon, he has not sent for.

Then King David in answer said, Send for Bath-sheba to come to me. And she came in and took her place before the king.

Then Bath-sheba went down on her face on the earth before the king giving him honour, and said, May my lord King David go on living for ever.

And King David said, Send for Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king.

Then come up after him and he will come in and take his place on the seat of my kingdom; for he is to be king in my place, and I have given orders that he is to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.

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 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 they gave Solomon word of it, saying, See, Adonijah goes in such fear of King Solomon, that he has put his hands on the horns of the altar, saying, Let King Solomon first give me his oath that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.

Now you have knowledge of what Joab, the son of Zeruiah, did to me, and to the two captains of the army of Israel, Abner, the son of Ner, and Amasa, the son of Jether, whom he put to death, taking payment for the blood of war in time of peace, and making the band of my clothing and the shoes on my feet red with the blood of one put to death without cause.

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.

But do not let him be free from punishment, for you are a wise man; and it will be clear to you what you have to do with him; see that his white head goes down to the underworld in blood.

David was king over Israel for forty years: for seven years he was king in Hebron and for thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

And he said, You saw how the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had the idea that I would be their king; but now the kingdom is turned about, and has become my brother's, for it was given to him by the Lord.

Then he said, Will you go to Solomon the king (for he will not say, No, to you) and put before him my request that he will give me Abishag the Shunammite for a wife?

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 she said, I have one small request to make to you; do not say, No, to me. And the king said, Say on, my mother, for I will not say, No, to you.

And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother for a wife.

Then King Solomon made answer and said to his mother, Why are you requesting me to give Abishag the Shunammite to Adonijah? Take the kingdom for him in addition, for he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, are on his side.

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.

And news of this came to Joab; for Joab had been one of Adonijah's supporters, though he had not been on Absalom's side. Then Joab went in flight to the Tent of the Lord, and put his hands on the horns of the altar.

So their blood will be on the head of Joab, and on the head of his seed for ever; but for David and his seed and his family and the seat of his kingdom, there will be peace for ever from the Lord.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Make a house for yourself in Jerusalem and keep there and go to no other place.

For be certain that on the day when you go out and go over the stream Kidron, death will overtake you: and your blood will be on your head.

And Shimei said to the king, Very well! as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do. And for a long time Shimei went on living in Jerusalem.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Did I not make you take an oath by the Lord, protesting to you and saying, Be certain that on the day when you go out from here, wherever you go, death will overtake you? and you said to me, Very well!

But a blessing will be on King Solomon, and the kingdom of David will keep its place before the Lord for ever.

Solomon became the son-in-law of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter as his wife, keeping her in the town of David, till the house he was building for himself, and the house of the Lord and the wall round Jerusalem, were complete.

And Solomon, in his love for the Lord, kept the laws of David his father; but he made offerings and let them go up in smoke on the high places.

And Solomon said, Great was your mercy to David my father, as his life before you was true and upright and his heart was true to you; and you have kept for him this greatest mercy, a son to take his place this day.

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;

I have done as you said: I have given you a wise and far-seeing heart, so that there has never been your equal in the past, and never will there be any like you in the future.

And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal.

And Solomon, awakening, saw that it was a dream; then he came to Jerusalem, where he went before the ark of the agreement of the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings; and he made a feast for all his servants.

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 Solomon put twelve overseers over all Israel, to be responsible for the stores needed for the king and those of his house; every man was responsible for one month in the year.

Baana, the son of Ahilud, in Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is by the side of Zarethan, under Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the far side of Jokmeam;

And Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the edge of Egypt; men gave him offerings and were his servants all the days of his life.

And the amount of Solomon's food for one day was thirty measures of crushed grain and sixty measures of meal;

For he had authority over all the country on this side of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings on this side of the River; and he had peace round him on every side.

So Judah and Israel were living safely, every man under his vine and his fig-tree, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.

And Solomon had four thousand boxed-off spaces for horses for his carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen.

And those overseers, every man in his month, saw that food was produced for Solomon and all his guests, they took care that nothing was overlooked.

And they took grain and dry grass for the horses and the carriage-horses, to the right place, every man as he was ordered.

For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about.

Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David.

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.

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.

And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of grain, as food for his people, and twenty measures of clear oil; this he did every year.

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

And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them.

Then he had seventy thousand for the work of transport, and eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountains;

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.

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year that Solomon was king of Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, the building of the Lord's house was started.

The house which Solomon made for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.

And for the house he made windows, with network across.

The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house.

And at the back of the house a further space of twenty cubits was shut in with boards of cedar-wood, for the inmost room.

For the way into the inmost room he made doors of olive-wood, the arch and the door supports forming a five-sided opening.

Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square:

Solomon was thirteen years building a house for himself till it was complete.

And he made the house of the Woods of Lebanon, which was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high, resting on four lines of cedar-wood pillars with cedar-wood supports on the pillars.

Then he made a covered room for his high seat when he gave decisions; this was the covered room of judging; it was covered with cedar-wood from floor to roof.

And the house for his living-place, the other open square in the covered room, was made in the same way. And then he made a house like it for Pharaoh's daughter, whom Solomon had taken as his wife.

He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; he was full of wisdom and knowledge and an expert worker in brass. He came to King Solomon and did all his work for him.

And he made the two crowns to be put on the tops of the pillars, of brass made soft in the fire; the crowns were five cubits high.

There were nets of open-work for the crowns on the tops of the pillars, a net of open-work for one and a net of open-work for the other.

The crowns on the tops of the pillars were ornamented with a design of flowers, and were four cubits across.

And under the edge of it, circling it all round for ten cubits, were two lines of flower buds, made together with it from liquid metal.

And he made ten wheeled bases of brass; every one four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high.

Every base had four wheels of brass, turning on brass rods, and their four angles had angle-plates under them; the angle-plates under the base were of metal, and there were ornaments at the side of every one.

The four wheels were under the frames, and the rods on which the wheels were fixed were in the base; the wheels were a cubit and a half high.

And there were four angle-plates at the four angles of every base, forming part of the structure of the base.

And he made ten brass washing-vessels, everyone taking forty baths, and measuring four cubits; one vessel was placed on every one of the ten bases.

And Hiram made the pots and spades and the basins. So Hiram came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of the Lord:

And the four hundred apples for the network, two lines of apples for every network, covering the two cups of the crowns on the pillars;

And the pots and the spades and the basins; all the vessels which Hiram made for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

And Solomon had all the vessels made for use in the house of the Lord: the altar of gold and the gold table on which the holy bread was placed;

And the supports for the lights, five on the right side and five on the left before the inmost room, of clear gold; and the flowers and the lights and all the instruments of gold;

And the cups and the scissors and the basins and the spoons and the fire-trays, all of gold; and the pins on which the doors were turned, the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and the doors of the Temple, all of gold.

Then Solomon sent for all the responsible men of Israel, and all the chiefs of the tribes, and the heads of families of the children of Israel, to come to him in Jerusalem to take the ark of the Lord's agreement up out of the town of David, which is Zion.

For their wings were outstretched over the place where the ark was, covering the ark and its rods.

So that the priests were not able to keep their places to do their work because of the cloud, for the house of the Lord was full of the glory of the Lord.

Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men;

So I have made for you a living-place, a house in which you may be for ever present.

From the day when I took my people Israel out of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; but I made selection of David to be king over my people Israel.