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.

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.

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 there let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet put the holy oil on him to make him king over Israel; and sounding the horn say, Long life to King Solomon!

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.

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.

So that the Lord may give effect to what he said of me, If your children give attention to their ways, living uprightly before me with all their heart and their soul, you will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

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.

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.

And the Lord will send back his blood on his head, because of the attack he made on two men more upright and better than himself, putting them to the sword without my father's knowledge; even Abner, the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.

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.

Now Solomon was king over all Israel.

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.

Judah and Israel were as great in number as the sand by the seaside, and they took their food and drink with joy in their hearts.

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.

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

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.

And I will be ever among the children of Israel, and will not go away from my people.

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.

And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, the seventh month.

And all the responsible men of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark.

And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there, were with him before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered.

There was nothing in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

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,

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.

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.

Then Solomon took his place before the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present, and stretching out his hands to heaven,

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.

Give ear to the prayers of your servant, and the prayers of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear in heaven your living-place, and hearing, have mercy.

When your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers to you and requesting your grace in this house:

Then give ear in heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again into the land which you gave to their fathers.

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.

Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel; when he comes from a far country because of the glory of your name:

Give ear in heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and that they may see that this house which I have put up is truly named by your name.

Let your eyes be open to your servant's prayer for grace and to the prayer of your people Israel, hearing them when their cry comes to you.

And, getting on his feet, he gave a blessing to all the men of Israel, saying with a loud voice,

Praise be to the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, as he gave them his word to do; every word of all his oath, which he gave by the hand of Moses his servant, has come true.

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.

Now the king, and all Israel with him, were making offerings before the Lord.

And Solomon gave to the Lord for peace-offerings, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel kept the feast of the opening of the Lord's house.

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 make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

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.

As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel;

Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day.

But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen.

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.

The nations of which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You are not to take wives from them and they are not to take wives from you; or they will certainly make you go after their gods: to these Solomon was united in love.

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;)

He was a trouble to Israel all through the days of Solomon. And this is the damage Hadad did: he was cruel to Israel while he was ruler over Edom.

(But one tribe will be his, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town which, out of all the tribes of Israel, I have made mine,)

And you I will take, and you will be king over Israel, ruling over whatever is the desire of your soul.

And if you give attention to the orders I give you, walking in my ways and doing what is right in my eyes and keeping my laws and my orders as David my servant did; then I will be with you, building up for you a safe house, as I did for David, and I will give Israel to you.

And the time Solomon was king in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king,

And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O Israel; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents.

(But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.)

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.

So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.

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.

The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers, the children of Israel; go back, every man to his house, because this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the word of the Lord, and went back, as the Lord had said.

So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough; see! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

And this became a sin in Israel; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan.

He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

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,

So I will send evil on the line of Jeroboam, cutting off from his family every male child, those who are shut up and those who go free in Israel; the family of Jeroboam will be brushed away like a man brushing away waste till it is all gone.

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.

And the Lord will put up a king over Israel who will send destruction on the family of Jeroboam in that day;

And even now the hand of the Lord has come down on Israel, shaking it like a river-grass in the water; and, uprooting Israel from this good land, which he gave to their fathers, he will send them this way and that on the other side of the River; because they have made for themselves images, moving the Lord to wrath.

And he will give Israel up because of the sins which Jeroboam has done and made Israel do.

And all Israel put his body to rest, weeping over him, as the Lord had said by his servant Ahijah the prophet.

Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he became king, are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel.

And Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was king in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was king for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

And more than this, there were those in the land who were used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods, doing the same disgusting crimes as the nations which the Lord had sent out before the children of Israel.

In the twentieth year that Jeroboam was king of Israel, Asa became king over Judah.

Now there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

And Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah, so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you an offering of silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

So Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-beth-maacah, and all Chinneroth as far as all the land of Naphtali.

Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, became king over Israel in the second year that Asa was king of Judah; and he was king of Israel for two years.

He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of his father, and the sin which he did and made Israel do.

And Baasha, the son of Ahijah, of the family of Issachar, made a secret design against him, attacking him at Gibbethon, a town of the Philistines; for Nadab and the armies of Israel were making war on Gibbethon.

Because of the sins which Jeroboam did and made Israel do, moving the Lord, the God of Israel, to wrath.

Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all he did, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

And there was war between Asa and Baasha, king of Israel, all their days.

In the third year of the rule of Asa, king of Judah, Baasha, the son of Ahijah, became king over all Israel in Tirzah, and was king for twenty-four years.

He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, copying the evil ways of Jeroboam and the sin which he made Israel do.

Because I took you up out of the dust, and made you ruler over my people Israel; and you have gone in the ways of Jeroboam, and made my people Israel do evil, moving me to wrath by their sins;

Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his power, are they not recorded in the book of the history of the kings of Israel?

In the twenty-sixth year that Asa was king of Judah, Elah, the son of Baasha, became king of Israel in Tirzah, and he was king for two years.