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

Adonijah sacrificed sheep, oxen, and fatted cattle by the Serpent Stone near En-rogel, inviting all of his relatives, the king's sons, and all of the men of Judah who worked for the king,

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?'

Then, while you are still talking to the king, I'll come in after you and verify your statement."

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

"Your majesty," she replied, "you promised your servant in the name of the LORD your God, "Your son Solomon will certainly become king after me and will sit on my throne.'

And as for you, your majesty, everyone in Israel is looking to you to tell them who will sit on your majesty's throne after you.

When he had been ushered into the presence of the king, Nathan bowed low in front of the king with his face to the ground and asked, "Your majesty, did you say "Adonijah will be king after me and will sit on my throne'?

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

"Call Bathsheba for me," King David replied. So she came in and stood in front of the king.

"As the LORD lives," the king said with an oath, "who has redeemed me from all sorts of troubles,

I certainly did tell you in the name of the LORD God of Israel, "Your son Solomon will be king after me and will sit on my throne in my place.' I'm certainly going to make this happen today!"

"King David," Bathsheba said as she bowed low in front of the king with her face to the ground, "your majesty, may you live forever."

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

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!

Right about then, Adonijah and all of his guests were just finishing their meal when they heard all the noise. "Why is the city in such an uproar?" Joab asked as he heard the trumpet sounds.

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!

Solomon now sits on the royal throne.

In addition to all of this, the king's servants have come along to congratulate our lord King David. They've been telling David "May your God make Solomon's reputation even more famous than yours, and may he make his throne greater than yours!' The king has himself bowed in worship on his own bed

and said "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has provided someone to sit on my throne today. I've seen it with my own eyes!'"

"Hey look!" somebody informed Solomon. "Adonijah is terrified of King Solomon! He's gone out, grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, and now he's begging King Solomon, "Swear to me that you won't put your servant to death with a sword!'"

"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!"

"I'm headed down the road that everyone who lives on earth travels, so be strong and demonstrate that you're a grown man

by keeping the charge that the LORD your God entrusted to you. Live life his way, keep his statutes, his commands, his ordinances, and his testimonies, just as they're written down in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in everything you do and wherever you go,

and so that the LORD may fulfill his promise that he spoke about me when he said, "If your sons pay attention to how they live by walking truthfully in my presence with all their heart and with all their soul, you will never lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

"Furthermore, you're aware of what Zeruiah's son Joab did to me and to those two commanders of the armies of Israel, Ner's son Abner and Jether's son Amasa, whom he killed, and how he shed the blood of wartime during times of peace, staining the very belt he wears around his waist and the sandals he wears on his feet.

Be gracious to the descendants of Barzillai the Gileadite, and provide for them in your household, because they helped me when I had to run from your brother Absalom.

"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."

After this, David died, as had his ancestors, and he was buried in the City of David.

David had reigned over Israel for 40 years. He reigned in Hebron for seven years and in Jerusalem for 33 years.

Later, Haggith's son Adonijah approached Solomon's mother. "Are you here on a peaceful mission?" she asked.

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."

So Bathsheba went to talk to King Solomon for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, bowed to her, and sat down on his throne. He ordered a throne be set in place for his mother. She sat on a throne to his right

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."

Then King Solomon took this oath in the name of the LORD: "May God do so to me, and more besides, if Adonijah hasn't endangered his life by bringing up this subject.

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."

The king also told Abiathar the priest, "Go home to Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I won't kill you today, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David and because you shared all the troubles that my father went through."

So Solomon fired Abiathar as the LORD's priest, thus fulfilling the promise that the LORD had spoken in Shiloh concerning Eli's household.

When Joab learned what had happened, he ran to the LORD's tent and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, since Joab had supported Adonijah (though he had not supported Absalom).

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

The king appointed Jehoiada's son Benaiah in charge of the army to replace Joab and also appointed Zadok the priest to replace Abiathar.

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

If you ever leave and cross the Kidron Brook, you can be sure that you'll die. You'll be responsible for your own death."

Shimei replied to the king, "What your majesty has decreed is acceptable to me. I'll do what you've said." So Shimei lived in Jerusalem for quite some time.

But King Solomon will be blessed, and David's throne will be established in the presence of the LORD forever."

Later, Solomon intermarried with the family of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt by taking his daughter and bringing her to the City of David to live until he had completed building his own palace, the LORD's Temple, and the wall around Jerusalem.

The king used to go to Gibeon to sacrifice, since there was a famous high place there, where Solomon once offered 1,000 burnt offerings on that altar.

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.

Your servant lives in the midst of your people that you have chosen, a great people that is too numerous to be counted.

So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil. Otherwise, how will I be able to govern this great people of yours?"

"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.

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

One woman said, "Your majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.

Three days later, this woman also gave birth. We lived alone there. There was nobody else with us in the house. It was just the two of us.

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!"

"Not so," claimed the other woman. "The living child is my son, and the dead one is yours." But the first woman said, "Not so! The dead child is your son and the living one is my son." This is what they testified before the king.

The king said, "One of them claims, "This living son is mine, and your son is the dead one' and the other claims "No. Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.'

"Divide the living child in two!" he ordered. "Give half to the one and half to the other."

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."

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.

Solomon also appointed twelve governors over all of Israel, each of whom were responsible for providing one month's food provisions to the king and to his administration during each year.

Ben-deker in Makaz, Shaalbim and Beth-shemesh and Elonbeth-hanan;

Ben-hesed served in Arubboth (where he supervised Socoh and all of the territory of Hepher);

Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead, including the towns that belonged to Manasseh's descendant Jair that are in Gilead;

Iddo's son Ahinadab served in Mahanaim;

Ahimaaz served in Naphtali (he was married to Solomon's daughter Basemath);

Hushai's son Baana served in Asher and Bealoth;

Paruah's son Jehoshaphat served in Issachar;

Ela's son Shimei served in Benjamin;

and Uri's son Geber served in the territory of Gilead, the territory formerly ruled by King Sihon of the Amorites and King Og of Bashan (he was the only governor over that territory).

Judah and Israel became as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They enjoyed abundance, and ate, drank, and rejoiced regularly.

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.

Judah and Israel lived safely, and everyone enjoyed their own vine and fig tree from Dan to Beer-sheba through all of Solomon's life.

His officers supplied provisions for King Solomon and for everyone who visited King Solomon's palace, each in their respective month of service responsibility. Nothing ever ran out.

God gave Solomon wisdom and great discernment. His insights were as numerous as sand on the seashore.

Solomon was wiser than any of the eastern leaders and wiser than anyone in Egypt.

He described trees everything from cedars that grow in Lebanon to hyssop that grows on a garden wall. He described animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

People came from everywhere to hear Solomon's advice. Every king on the earth heard of his wisdom.

King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he learned that Solomon had been anointed king to replace his father, because Hiram had been David's lifelong friend.

So now I'm planning to build a temple dedicated to the LORD my God, just as the LORD told my father when he said, "Your son, whom I will set on your throne to replace you, will build the Temple dedicated to me.'

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."

In return, Solomon paid Hiram 20,000 kors of wheat as food for his household, and 20 kors of beaten oil. Solomon provided this amount every year during the construction.

He sent 10,000 men to Lebanon in shifts lasting one month. They worked one month in Lebanon for every two months they worked at home. Adoniram was placed in charge of the conscripted labor.

Solomon also employed 70,000 heavy-lift workers and 80,000 stonecutters in the hill country.

Solomon also employed 3,300 officials to supervise the work and to manage the people employed in the construction.

A portico extended in front of the Temple for 20 cubits outward, corresponding to the width of the Temple. Along the front of the Temple its depth was ten cubits.

Solomon also constructed windows in the Temple with specially designed frames.

The Temple was constructed of stone precut at the quarry so that no hammer, axe, or any other iron implement would be heard in the Temple while it was being built.

A passageway to the side chamber was constructed on the south side of the Temple by which people could ascend winding stairs to the middle story, then from there to the third story.

So Solomon kept on building the Temple and finished it.

The rest of the main nave in the front was 40 cubits long.