His servants advised him, "A young virgin must be found for our master, the king, to take care of the king's needs and serve as his nurse. She can also sleep with you and keep our master, the king, warm."

Now Adonijah, son of David and Haggith, was promoting himself, boasting, "I will be king!" He managed to acquire chariots and horsemen, as well as fifty men to serve as his royal guard.

(Now his father had never corrected him by saying, "Why do you do such things?" He was also very handsome and had been born right after Absalom.)

Visit King David and say to him, 'My master, O king, did you not solemnly promise your servant, "Surely your son Solomon will be king after me; he will sit on my throne"? So why has Adonijah become king?'

She replied to him, "My master, you swore an oath to your servant by the Lord your God, 'Solomon your son will be king after me and he will sit on my throne.'

If a decision is not made, when my master the king is buried with his ancestors, my son Solomon and I will be considered state criminals."

Nathan said, "My master, O king, did you announce, 'Adonijah will be king after me; he will sit on my throne'?

I will keep today the oath I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel: 'Surely Solomon your son will be king after me; he will sit in my place on my throne.'"

Then follow him up as he comes and sits on my throne. He will be king in my place; I have decreed that he will be ruler over Israel and Judah."

Benaiah son of Jehoiada responded to the king: "So be it! May the Lord God of my master the king confirm it!

As the Lord is with my master the king, so may he be with Solomon, and may he make him an even greater king than my master King David!"

As he was still speaking, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest arrived. Adonijah said, "Come in, for an important man like you must be bringing good news."

Solomon said, "If he is a loyal subject, not a hair of his head will be harmed, but if he is found to be a traitor, he will die."

"I am about to die. Be strong and become a man!

Do the job the Lord your God has assigned you by following his instructions and obeying his rules, commandments, regulations, and laws as written in the law of Moses. Then you will succeed in all you do and seek to accomplish,

"Note well, you still have to contend with Shimei son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who tried to call down upon me a horrible judgment when I went to Mahanaim. He came down and met me at the Jordan, and I solemnly promised him by the Lord, 'I will not strike you down with the sword.'

He said, "You know that the kingdom was mine and all Israel considered me king. But then the kingdom was given to my brother, for the Lord decided it should be his.

So Bathsheba visited King Solomon to speak to him on Adonijah's behalf. The king got up to greet her, bowed to her, and then sat on his throne. He ordered a throne to be brought for the king's mother, and she sat at his right hand.

She said, "Allow Abishag the Shunammite to be given to your brother Adonijah as a wife."

King Solomon then swore an oath by the Lord, "May God judge me severely, if Adonijah does not pay for this request with his life!

Now, as certainly as the Lord lives (he who made me secure, allowed me to sit on my father David's throne, and established a dynasty for me as he promised), Adonijah will be executed today!"

May Joab and his descendants be perpetually guilty of their shed blood, but may the Lord give perpetual peace to David, his descendants, his family, and his dynasty."

If you ever do leave and cross the Kidron Valley, know for sure that you will certainly die! You will be responsible for your own death."

the king summoned Shimei and said to him, "You will recall that I made you take an oath by the Lord, and I solemnly warned you, 'If you ever leave and go anywhere, know for sure that you will certainly die.' You said to me, 'The proposal is acceptable; I agree to it.'

But King Solomon will be empowered and David's dynasty will endure permanently before the Lord."

Solomon made an alliance by marriage with Pharaoh, king of Egypt; he married Pharaoh's daughter. He brought her to the City of David until he could finish building his residence and the temple of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.

Solomon demonstrated his loyalty to the Lord by following the practices of his father David, except that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

Solomon replied, "You demonstrated great loyalty to your servant, my father David, as he served you faithfully, properly, and sincerely. You have maintained this great loyalty to this day by allowing his son to sit on his throne.

Furthermore, I am giving you what you did not request -- riches and honor so that you will be the greatest king of your generation.

If you follow my instructions by obeying my rules and regulations, just as your father David did, then I will grant you long life."

So now order some cedars of Lebanon to be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants. I will pay your servants whatever you say is appropriate, for you know that we have no one among us who knows how to cut down trees like the Sidonians."

My servants will bring the timber down from Lebanon to the sea. I will send it by sea in raft-like bundles to the place you designate. There I will separate the logs and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court."

By royal order they supplied large valuable stones in order to build the temple's foundation with chiseled stone.

The bottom floor of the extension was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet wide, and the third floor ten and a half feet wide. He made ledges on the temple's outer walls so the beams would not have to be inserted into the walls.

He built an extension all around the temple; it was seven and a half feet high and it was attached to the temple by cedar beams.

He built a wall 30 feet in from the rear of the temple as a partition for an inner sanctuary that would be the most holy place. He paneled the wall with cedar planks from the floor to the rafters.

He prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord could be placed there.

The roof above the beams supported by the pillars was also made of cedar; there were forty-five beams, fifteen per row.

Hiram also made basins, shovels, and bowls. He finished all the work on the Lord's temple he had been assigned by King Solomon.

Now King Solomon and all the Israelites who had assembled with him went on ahead of the ark and sacrificed more sheep and cattle than could be counted or numbered.

The poles were so long their ends were visible from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from beyond that point. They have remained there to this very day.

Now, O God of Israel, may the promise you made to your servant, my father David, be realized.

"When someone is accused of sinning against his neighbor and the latter pronounces a curse on the alleged offender before your altar in this temple, be willing to forgive the accused if the accusation is false.

"The time will come when your people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they sinned against you. If they come back to you, renew their allegiance to you, and pray for your help in this temple,

"The time will come when your people will sin against you (for there is no one who is sinless!) and you will be angry with them and deliver them over to their enemies, who will take them as prisoners to their own land, whether far away or close by.

"May you be attentive to your servant's and your people Israel's requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you.

After all, you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt."

May the Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he not abandon us or leave us.

May the Lord our God be constantly aware of these requests of mine I have presented to him, so that he might vindicate his servant and his people Israel as the need arises.

May you demonstrate wholehearted devotion to the Lord our God by following his rules and obeying his commandments, as you are presently doing."

The Lord said to him, "I have answered your prayer and your request for help that you made to me. I have consecrated this temple you built by making it my permanent home; I will be constantly present there.

then I will remove Israel from the land I have given them, I will abandon this temple I have consecrated with my presence, and Israel will be mocked and ridiculed among all the nations.

This temple will become a heap of ruins; everyone who passes by it will be shocked and will hiss out their scorn, saying, 'Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?'

May the Lord your God be praised because he favored you by placing you on the throne of Israel! Because of the Lord's eternal love for Israel, he made you king so you could make just and right decisions."

Hadad, who was only a small boy at the time, escaped with some of his father's Edomite servants and headed for Egypt.

I am taking the kingdom from him because they have abandoned me and worshiped the Sidonian goddess Astarte, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom. They have not followed my instructions by doing what I approve and obeying my rules and regulations, like Solomon's father David did.

I will not take the whole kingdom from his hand. I will allow him to be ruler for the rest of his life for the sake of my chosen servant David who kept my commandments and rules.

I will select you; you will rule over all you desire to have and you will be king over Israel.

You must obey all I command you to do, follow my instructions, do what I approve, and keep my rules and commandments, like my servant David did. Then I will be with you and establish for you a lasting dynasty, as I did for David; I will give you Israel.

They said to him, "Today if you show a willingness to help these people and grant their request, they will be your servants from this time forward."

Just then a prophet from Judah, sent by the Lord, arrived in Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing near the altar ready to offer a sacrifice.

With the authority of the Lord he cried out against the altar, "O altar, altar! This is what the Lord says, 'Look, a son named Josiah will be born to the Davidic dynasty. He will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer sacrifices on you. Human bones will be burned on you.'"

That day he also announced a sign, "This is the sign the Lord has predetermined: The altar will be split open and the ashes on it will fall to the ground."

The king pled with the prophet, "Seek the favor of the Lord your God and pray for me, so that my hand may be restored." So the prophet sought the Lord's favor and the king's hand was restored to its former condition.

You went back and ate and drank in this place, even though he said to you, "Do not eat or drink there." Therefore your corpse will not be buried in your ancestral tomb.'"

Some men came by and saw the corpse lying in the road with the lion standing beside it. They went and reported what they had seen in the city where the old prophet lived.

for the prophecy he announced with the Lord's authority against the altar in Bethel and against all the temples on the high places in the cities of the north will certainly be fulfilled."

This sin caused Jeroboam's dynasty to come to an end and to be destroyed from the face of the earth.

Take ten loaves of bread, some small cakes, and a container of honey and visit him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy."

But the Lord had told Ahijah, "Look, Jeroboam's wife is coming to find out from you what will happen to her son, for he is sick. Tell her so-and-so. When she comes, she will be in a disguise."

When Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps as she came through the door, he said, "Come on in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else? I have been commissioned to give you bad news.

I tore the kingdom away from the Davidic dynasty and gave it to you. But you are not like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me wholeheartedly by doing only what I approve.

You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me.

"As for you, get up and go home. When you set foot in the city, the boy will die.

The Lord will attack Israel, making it like a reed that sways in the water. He will remove Israel from this good land he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they angered the Lord by making Asherah poles.

So Jeroboam's wife got up and went back to Tirzah. As she crossed the threshold of the house, the boy died.

Now Rehoboam son of Solomon ruled in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. His mother was an Ammonite woman named Naamah.

Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord. They made him more jealous by their sins than their ancestors had done.

Nevertheless for David's sake the Lord his God maintained his dynasty in Jerusalem by giving him a son to succeed him and by protecting Jerusalem.

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As certainly as the Lord God of Israel lives (whom I serve), there will be no dew or rain in the years ahead unless I give the command."

Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go and do as you planned. But first make a small cake for me and bring it to me; then make something for yourself and your son.

For this is what the Lord God of Israel says, 'The jar of flour will not be empty and the jug of oil will not run out until the day the Lord makes it rain on the surface of the ground.'"

Then he called out to the Lord, "O Lord, my God, are you also bringing disaster on this widow I am staying with by killing her son?"

He stretched out over the boy three times and called out to the Lord, "O Lord, my God, please let this boy's breath return to him."

The Lord answered Elijah's prayer; the boy's breath returned to him and he lived.

Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upper room to the house, and handed him to his mother. Elijah then said, "See, your son is alive!"

But when I leave you, the Lord's spirit will carry you away so I can't find you. If I go tell Ahab I've seen you, he won't be able to find you and he will kill me. That would not be fair, because your servant has been a loyal follower of the Lord from my youth.

Elijah replied, "I have not brought disaster on Israel. But you and your father's dynasty have, by abandoning the Lord's commandments and following the Baals.

Elijah approached all the people and said, "How long are you going to be paralyzed by indecision? If the Lord is the true God, then follow him, but if Baal is, follow him!" But the people did not say a word.

Then you will invoke the name of your god, and I will invoke the name of the Lord. The god who responds with fire will demonstrate that he is the true God." All the people responded, "This will be a fair test."

At noon Elijah mocked them, "Yell louder! After all, he is a god; he may be deep in thought, or perhaps he stepped out for a moment or has taken a trip. Perhaps he is sleeping and needs to be awakened."

Then Elijah took twelve stones, corresponding to the number of tribes that descended from Jacob, to whom the Lord had said, "Israel will be your new name."

Then Elijah told Ahab, "Go on up and eat and drink, for the sound of a heavy rainstorm can be heard."

Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this warning, "May the gods judge me severely if by this time tomorrow I do not take your life as you did theirs!"

He looked and right there by his head was a cake baking on hot coals and a jug of water. He ate and drank and then slept some more.

The Lord's angelic messenger came back again, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, for otherwise you won't be able to make the journey."

The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Look, the Lord is ready to pass by." A very powerful wind went before the Lord, digging into the mountain and causing landslides, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the windstorm there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve pairs of oxen; he was near the twelfth pair. Elijah passed by him and threw his robe over him.

Elisha went back and took his pair of oxen and slaughtered them. He cooked the meat over a fire that he made by burning the harness and yoke. He gave the people meat and they ate. Then he got up and followed Elijah and became his assistant.

Ahab asked, "By whom will this be accomplished?" He answered, "This is what the Lord says, 'By the servants of the district governors.'" Ahab asked, "Who will launch the attack?" He answered, "You will."