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.

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."

Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of my father David, and who has established a dynasty, just like he promised, Adonijah will surely be executed today."

"Because you asked for this, and you didn't ask for a long life for yourself, and you didn't ask for the lives of your enemies, but instead you've asked for discernment so you can understand how to govern, look how I'm going to do precisely what you asked. I'm giving you a wise and discerning mind, so that there will have been no one like you before you and no one will arise after you like you.

If you will live life my way, keeping my statutes and my commands, just like your father David did, I'll also increase the length of your life."

Now therefore please order that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, because you know there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians do."

So the great court was surrounded by three rows of cut stone, along with a row of cedar beams, just like the inner court of the LORD's Temple and the porch surrounding the Temple.

The pillars contained two rows of ornaments shaped like pomegranates around the latticework covering the top of each pillar.

The reservoir, which held about 2,000 baths, stood about a handbreadth thick, and its rim looked like the brim of a cup or of a lily blossom.

Each cart had four bronze wheels equipped with bronze axles with four support feet. Beneath the basin were cast support structures made like wreaths on each side.

"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.

"Now as for you, if you commune with me like your father did, with an upright heart of integrity and doing everything that I've commanded you and keeping my statutes and ordinances,

along with the storage cities that Solomon used for his chariots and for his cavalry, everything that Solomon felt like building in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in every territory under his control.

The king used the algum wood to have supports made for the LORD's Temple and for the royal palace, as well as lyres and harps for the choir, and nothing like that wood has ever come again or even been seen since right to this day.

I'm doing this because they have abandoned me and worshipped that Sidonian goddess Astarte, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom. They haven't lived my way by doing what I consider to be right and observing my statutes and my ordinances, like his father David did.

If you listen to everything that I command you to do, and if you live your life my way, and if you do what I consider to be right by observing my statutes and my commandments, just like my servant David did, then I will be with you, I will build an enduring dynasty for you, just like I did for David, and I'll give Israel to you.

"Please!" the king begged the man of God, "Ask the LORD your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored for me!" So the man of God asked the LORD, and the king's hand was immediately and fully restored, just like it had been before.

So the king told the man of God, "Come back to my palace and rest a while. I'd like to give you a reward."

"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,

"I tore the kingdom away from David's dynasty. "Then I gave it to you. But you have not lived like my servant David, who kept my commands with all his heart, and did only what I considered to be right.

The LORD will attack Israel, and Israel will shake like a reed shakes in a river current! He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and he will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they erected their Asherim and provoked the LORD to become angry!

Asa practiced what the LORD considered to be right, just like his ancestor David.

"Let's make a treaty between you and me," he said, "just like the one between my father and your father. Notice that I've sent you silver and gold to break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel, so he'll retreat from his attack on me."

He practiced what the LORD considered to be evil, living like Jeroboam did and leading Israel into sin.

"I raised you from the dirt to become Commander-in-Chief over my people Israel, but you've been living like Jeroboam, you've been leading my people Israel into sin, and you've been provoking me to anger with their sins.

So watch out! I'm going to devour Baasha and his household. I'm going to make your household just like the household of Jeroboam, Nebat's son.

In addition, a message from the LORD came through Hanani's son Jehu the prophet against Baasha and his household, not only because of all of the things that Baasha did that the LORD considered to be evil, including provoking the LORD to anger by what he did and by being like the household of Jeroboam, but also because Baasha had destroyed Jeroboam's household.

because of the sins that he committed by doing what the LORD considered to be evil, living like Jeroboam did, and sinning so as to lead Israel into sin.

He lived just like Nebat's son Jeroboam, and by his sin he led Israel into sin, provoking the LORD God of Israel with their idolatry.

In fact, as if it were nothing for him to live like Nebat's son Jeroboam, Ahab married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon. Then he went out to serve Baal and worship him.

Jezebel sent a messenger to tell Elijah, "May the gods do the same to me and even more if tomorrow about this time I haven't made you like one of those prophets you had killed."

But the king of Israel replied, "Tell him, "The one who is starting to strap on his battle armor should never brag like the one who is taking it off.'"

The Israelis were mustered, equipped with provisions, and sent out to fight. The Israeli encampment looked like two little flocks of goats compared to how the Aramean encampments filled the countryside!

Ahab addressed Naboth and asked him, "I would like to plant a vegetable garden near my house. Please exchange your vineyard with a better one from me, or if you'd rather have cash, I'll buy it for its full value."

I will make your household resemble that of Nebat's son Jeroboam, or like the household of Ahijah's son Baasha, because of how you've provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin.

It can be truly said that no one else sold himself to practice what the LORD considered to be evil quite like the way Ahab did, because his wife Jezebel incited him.

His behavior in pursuing idolatry was detestable, just like the Amorites had done whom the LORD had expelled in front of the army of Israel.

"There is still one man left by whom we could ask the LORD what to do," the king of Israel replied to Jehoshaphat, "but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me. Instead, he prophesies evil. He is Imla's son Micaiah." But Jehoshaphat rebuked Ahab, "Kings should never talk like that."

All the other prophets were saying similar things, like "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and you will be successful, because the LORD will hand it over to the king!"

So Micaiah replied: "I saw all of Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep without a shepherd. And the LORD told me, "These have no master, so let them each return to his own home in peace.'"

He lived like his father Asa and never abandoned that life. He did what the LORD considered to be right. Nevertheless, the high places were not demolished, and the people continued to sacrifice and burn incense on the high places.

He practiced what the Lord considered to be evil by living life like his father and mother did. He lived like Nebat's son Jeroboam, who led Israel into sin.