Now King David was old, advanced in years; they covered him with clothes, but he could not get warm.

So his servants said to him, “Let a young virgin be found for my lord the king and let her attend him and become his nurse; let her lie against your chest, so that my lord the king may feel warm.”

The girl was very beautiful; and she became the king’s nurse and served him, but the king was not intimate with her.

His father [David] had never rebuked him at any time by asking, “Why have you done this?” Adonijah was also a very handsome man, and he was born after Absalom.

Adonijah sacrificed sheep and oxen and fattened steers by the Stone of Zoheleth, which is beside [the well] En-rogel; and he invited all his brothers, the king’s sons, and all the men of Judah, the king’s servants [to this feast].

Come now, please let me advise you and save your life and the life of your son Solomon.

Behold, while you are still there speaking with the king, I will come in after you and confirm your words.”

So Bathsheba went to the king in his bedroom. Now the king was very old and weak, and Abishag the Shunammite was attending the king.

He has sacrificed oxen and fattened steers and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king’s sons and Abiathar the priest and Joab the commander of the army [to a feast], but he did not invite your servant Solomon.

Now as for you, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you [waiting for you] to tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

Otherwise it will come about when my lord the king lies down [in death] with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be considered political enemies.”

While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

The king was told, “Here is Nathan the prophet.” And when he came before the king, he bowed before the king with his face to the ground.

Then Nathan said, “My lord the king, have you said, ‘Adonijah shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne’?

Because he has gone down today [to En-Rogel] and has sacrificed oxen and fattened steers and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king’s sons, the commanders of the army and Abiathar the priest [to this feast]; and [right now] they are eating and drinking in his presence; and they say, ‘Long live King Adonijah!’

Then the king swore an oath and said, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my soul from all distress,

even as I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, ‘Solomon your son shall certainly be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place’; I will indeed do so this very day.”

The king told them, “Take the servants of your lord with you and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and bring him down to [the spring at] Gihon [in the Kidron Valley].

Then you shall come up [to Jerusalem] after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne and he shall reign as king in my place; for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah.”

All the people went up after him, and they were playing on flutes and rejoicing with great joy, so that the earth shook and seemed to burst open with their [joyful] sound.

Now Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished eating. When Joab heard the trumpet sound, he said, “Why is the city in such an uproar?”

While he was still speaking, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest arrived. And Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are a valiant and trustworthy man and you bring good news.”

Also, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon, and they have come up from there celebrating, so the city is in an uproar. This is the noise which you have heard.

Besides, Solomon has taken his seat on the throne of the kingdom.

The king has also said this: ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has granted one [of my descendants] to sit on my throne today and allowed my eyes to see it.’”

And Adonijah feared Solomon, and he got up and went [to the tabernacle on Mt. Zion] and took hold of the horns of the altar [seeking asylum].

Solomon said, “If he [proves he] is a worthy man, not even one of his hairs shall fall to the ground; but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die.”

So King Solomon sent [soldiers], and they brought Adonijah down from the altar [that was in front of the tabernacle]. And he came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon said to him, “Go to your house.”

When David’s time to die approached, he gave instructions to Solomon his son, saying,

Keep the charge of the Lord your God, [that is, fulfill your obligation to] walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in everything that you do and wherever you turn,

so that the Lord may fulfill His promise concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons are careful regarding their way [of life], to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and mind and with all their soul, you shall not fail to have a man (descendant) on the throne of Israel.’

Now you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah [my sister] did to me, and what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and to Amasa the son of Jether, [both of] whom he murdered; avenging the blood of war in [a time of] peace. And he put the [innocent] blood of war [of Abner and Amasa] on his belt that was around his waist, and on his sandals on his feet.

So act in accordance with your wisdom, but do not let his gray head go down to Sheol (the place of the dead) in peace.

But be gracious and kind to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who [have the honor to] eat at your table; for they met me [with kindness] when I fled from your brother Absalom.

And look, you have with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite of Bahurim; he is the one who cursed me with a sinister curse the day I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan [on my return], and I swore to him by the Lord, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’

So David lay down with his fathers [in death] and was buried in the City of David.

The time that David reigned over Israel was forty years: he reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

Then Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established.

Then he said, “I have something to say to you.” And she said, “Speak.”

So now I am making one request of you; do not refuse me.” And she said to him, “Speak.”

So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king rose to meet her, bowed before her, and sat down on his throne; then he had a throne set for her, the king’s mother, and she sat on his right.

Then she said, “I am making one small request of you; do not refuse me.” And the king said to her, “Ask, my mother, for I will not refuse you.”

Then King Solomon swore by the Lord, saying, “May God do the same to me, and more also, if Adonijah has not requested this [deplorable] thing against his own life.

So now, as the Lord lives, who has established me and set me on the throne of David my father, and who has made me a house as He promised, Adonijah shall indeed be put to death today.”

Then the king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to Anathoth to your own fields, for you certainly deserve to die; but I will not put you to death this day, because you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and you suffered everything that my father endured.”

So Solomon dismissed Abiathar [a descendant of Eli] from being priest to the Lord, fulfilling the word of the Lord, which He had spoken concerning the house (descendants) of Eli in Shiloh.

Now the news reached Joab, for Joab had supported and followed Adonijah, although he had not followed Absalom. So Joab fled to the [sacred] tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar [to seek asylum].

The Lord will return his bloody deeds upon his own head, because he struck down two men more righteous and honorable than he and killed them with the sword, without my father David knowing: Abner the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judah.

So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up [to the tabernacle] and struck and killed Joab, and he was buried at his own house in the wilderness [of Judah].

The king appointed Benaiah the son of Jehoiada over the army in Joab’s place, and appointed Zadok the priest in place of Abiathar.

Now the king sent word and called for Shimei and said to him, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there. Do not go from there to any other place.

For on the day you leave and cross over the Brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head.”

Shimei said to the king, “The word (ruling) is good. As my lord the king has said, so will your servant do.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem for many days.

But it happened after three years, that two of Shimei’s servants ran away to Achish the son of Maacah, the king of Gath. And Shimei was told, “Behold, your [runaway] servants are in Gath.”

So the king sent word and called for Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the Lord and solemnly warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you leave [Jerusalem] and go anywhere, you shall surely die’? And you said to me, ‘The word (ruling) I have heard is good.’

The king also said to Shimei, “You are aware in your own heart of all the evil you did to my father David; so the Lord shall return your evil on your own head.

So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck down Shimei, and he died.So the kingdom was established in the hands of Solomon.

Now Solomon became a son-in-law to Pharaoh king of Egypt [and formed an alliance] by taking Pharaoh’s daughter [in marriage]. He brought her to the City of David [where she remained temporarily] until he had finished building his own house (palace) and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.

But [in the meantime] the people were still sacrificing [to God] on the high places (hilltops) [as the pagans did to their idols], for there was no [permanent] house yet built for the Name of the Lord.

Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking [at first] in the statutes of David his father, except [for the fact that] he sacrificed and burned incense in the high places [ignoring the law that required all sacrifices to be offered at the tabernacle].

The king went to Gibeon [near Jerusalem, where the tabernacle and the bronze altar stood] to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night; and God said, “Ask [Me] what I shall give you.”

Then Solomon said, “You have shown Your servant David my father great lovingkindness, because he walked before You in faithfulness and righteousness and with uprightness of heart toward You; and You have kept for him this great lovingkindness, in that You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today.

So now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of David my father; and as for me, I am but a little boy [in wisdom and experience]; I do not know how to go out or come in [that is, how to conduct business as a king].

Your servant is among Your people whom You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted.

So give Your servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart [with which] to judge Your people, so that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge and rule this great people of Yours?”

behold, I have done as you asked. I have given you a wise and discerning heart (mind), so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall anyone equal to you arise after you.

And the one woman said, “O my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.

And on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were [alone] together; no one else was with us in the house, just we two.

Now this woman’s son died during the night, because she lay on him [and smothered him].

So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from [his place] beside me while your maidservant was asleep, and laid him on her bosom, and laid her dead son on my bosom.

When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the morning, behold, it was not my son, the one whom I had borne.”

Then the other woman said, “No! For my son is the one who is living, and your son is the dead one.” But the first woman said, “No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.” [This is how] they were speaking before the king.

Then the king said, “This woman says, ‘This is my son, the one who is alive, and your son is the dead one’; and the other woman says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the one who is alive.’”

Then the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one [woman] and half to the other.”

When all [the people of] Israel heard about the judgment which the king had made, they [were in awe and reverently] feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was within him to administer justice.

Ahishar was in charge of the household (palace); and Adoniram the son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor.

Solomon had twelve deputies over all Israel, who secured provisions for the king and his household; each man had to provide for a month in the year.

These were their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of [the tribe of] Ephraim;

Ben-deker in Makaz and Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elon-beth-hanan;

Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (to him belonged Socoh and all the land of Hepher);

Ben-abinadab, in all the hills of Dor (Taphath, Solomon’s daughter, was his wife);

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

Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (the villages of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead belonged to him, also the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and bronze bars);

Ahinadab the son of Iddo, in Mahanaim;

Ahimaaz, in [the tribe of] Naphtali (he also married Basemath, Solomon’s daughter);

Baana the son of Hushai, in [the tribe of] Asher and Bealoth;

Jehoshaphat the son of Paruah, in [the tribe of] Issachar;

Shimei the son of Ela, in [the tribe of] Benjamin;

Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only officer who was in the land.

[The people of] Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand that is in abundance by the sea; they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

Solomon’s food [for the royal household] for one day was thirty kors of finely milled flour, sixty kors of wheat flour,

For he was ruling over everything west of the [Euphrates] River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the [Euphrates] River; and he had peace on all sides around him.

Those deputies provided food for King Solomon and for all [the staff] who came to King Solomon’s table, each in his month; they let nothing be lacking.

For he was wiser than all [other] men, [wiser] than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. His fame was known in all the surrounding nations.

He spoke of trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon to the hyssop [vine] that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and fish.

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

“You know that David my father could not build a house (temple) for the Name (Presence) of the Lord his God because of the wars which surrounded him, until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

But now that the Lord my God has given me rest [from war] on every side, there is neither adversary nor misfortune [confronting me].

Behold, I intend to build a house (temple) to the Name of the Lord my God, just as the Lord said to my father David: ‘Your son whom I will put on your throne in your place shall build the house for My Name and Presence.’