Now King David was old and getting on in years. Although they covered him with bedclothes, he could not get warm.

So his servants said to him: “Let us search for a young virgin for my lord the king. She is to attend the king and be his caregiver. She is to lie by your side so that my lord the king will get warm.”

She replied, “My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God, ‘Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne.’

just as I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel: Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne in my place, that is exactly what I will do this very day.”

“Amen,” Benaiah son of Jehoiada replied to the king. “May the Lord, the God of my lord the king, so affirm it.

He was still speaking when Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest, suddenly arrived. Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are an excellent man, and you must be bringing good news.”

“The king’s servants have also gone to congratulate our lord King David, saying, ‘May your God make the name of Solomon more well known than your name, and may He make his throne greater than your throne.’ Then the king bowed in worship on his bed.

And the king went on to say this: ‘May the Lord God of Israel be praised! Today He has provided one to sit on my throne, and I am a witness.’”

Then all of Adonijah’s guests got up trembling and went their separate ways.

Adonijah was afraid of Solomon, so he got up and went to take hold of the horns of the altar.

and keep your obligation to the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to keep His statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees. This is written in the law of Moses, so that you will have success in everything you do and wherever you turn,

Then Solomon took an oath by the Lord: “May God punish me and do so severely if Adonijah has not made this request at the cost of his life.

The king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to your fields in Anathoth. Even though you deserve to die, I will not put you to death today, since you carried the ark of the Lord God in the presence of my father David and you suffered through all that my father suffered.”

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask. What should I give you?”

“Lord my God, You have now made Your servant king in my father David’s place. Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership.

So give Your servant an obedient heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”

So God said to him, “Because you have requested this and did not ask for long life or riches for yourself, or the death of your enemies, but you asked discernment for yourself to understand justice,

She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was asleep. She laid him at her breast, and she put her dead son in my arms.

When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, I discovered he was dead. That morning, when I looked closely at him I realized that he was not the son I gave birth to.”

Solomon said, “Cut the living boy in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”

But the other one said, “He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two!”

All Israel heard about the judgment the king had given, and they stood in awe of the king because they saw that God’s wisdom was in him to carry out justice.

God gave Solomon wisdom, very great insight, and understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore.

“You know my father David was not able to build a temple for the name of Yahweh his God. This was because of the warfare all around him until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

The Lord my God has now given me rest all around; there is no enemy or crisis.

So I plan to build a temple for the name of Yahweh my God, according to what the Lord promised my father David: ‘I will put your son on your throne in your place, and he will build the temple for My name.’

“Therefore, command that cedars from Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants’ wages according to whatever you say, for you know that not a man among us knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

The temple’s construction used finished stones cut at the quarry so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

All of these buildings were of costly stones, cut to size and sawed with saws on the inner and outer surfaces, from foundation to coping and from the outside to the great courtyard.

Above were also costly stones, cut to size, as well as cedar wood.

He said:

May the Lord God of Israel be praised!
He spoke directly to my father David,
and He has fulfilled the promise by His power.
He said,

It was in the desire of my father David
to build a temple for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

The Lord has fulfilled what He promised.
I have taken the place of my father David,
and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised.
I have built the temple for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

He said:

Lord God of Israel,
there is no God like You
in heaven above or on earth below,
keeping the gracious covenant
with Your servants who walk before You
with their whole heart.

Therefore, Lord God of Israel,
keep what You promised
to Your servant, my father David:
You will never fail to have a man
to sit before Me on the throne of Israel,
if only your sons guard their walk before Me
as you have walked before Me.

Now Lord God of Israel,
please confirm what You promised
to Your servant, my father David.

But will God indeed live on earth?
Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You,
much less this temple I have built.

Listen to Your servant’s prayer and his petition,
Lord my God,
so that You may hear the cry and the prayer
that Your servant prays before You today,

may You hear in heaven
and forgive the sin of Your servants
and Your people Israel,
so that You may teach them the good way
they should walk in.
May You send rain on Your land
that You gave Your people for an inheritance.

For You, Lord God, have set them apart as Your inheritance
from all the people on earth,
as You spoke through Your servant Moses
when You brought their ancestors out of Egypt.

When Solomon finished praying this entire prayer and petition to the Lord, he got up from kneeling before the altar of the Lord, with his hands spread out toward heaven,

“May the Lord be praised! He has given rest to His people Israel according to all He has said. Not one of all the good promises He made through His servant Moses has failed.

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

May my words I have made my petition with before the Lord be near the Lord our God day and night, so that He may uphold His servant’s cause and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires,

and so that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh is God. There is no other!

Let your heart be completely devoted to the Lord our God to walk in His statutes and to keep His commands, as it is today.”

Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt—observed the festival at that time in the presence of the Lord our God, seven days, and seven more days—14 days.

I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for My name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

Then they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.

May Yahweh your God be praised! He delighted in you and put you on the throne of Israel, because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel. He has made you king to carry out justice and righteousness.”

The whole world wanted an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

When Solomon was old, his wives seduced him to follow other gods. He was not completely devoted to Yahweh his God, as his father David had been.

The Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

God raised up Rezon son of Eliada as an enemy against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master Hadadezer king of Zobah

and said to Jeroboam, “Take 10 pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I am about to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand. I will give you 10 tribes,

For they have abandoned Me; they have bowed the knee to Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, to Chemosh, the god of Moab, and to Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways to do what is right in My eyes and to carry out My statutes and My judgments as his father David did.

Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam managed to get into the chariot and flee to Jerusalem.

But a revelation from God came to Shemaiah, the man of God:

So the king sought advice.

Then he made two golden calves, and he said to the people, “Going to Jerusalem is too difficult for you. Israel, here is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

A man of God came from Judah to Bethel by a revelation from the Lord while Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense.

The man of God cried out against the altar by a revelation from the Lord: “Altar, altar, this is what the Lord says, ‘A son will be born to the house of David, named Josiah, and he will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who are burning incense on you. Human bones will be burned on you.’”

When the king heard the word that the man of God had cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Arrest him!” But the hand he stretched out against him withered, and he could not pull it back to himself.

The altar was ripped apart, and the ashes poured from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

Then the king responded to the man of God, “Plead for the favor of the Lord your God and pray for me so that my hand may be restored to me.” So the man of God pleaded for the favor of the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him and became as it had been at first.

Then the king declared to the man of God, “Come home with me, refresh yourself, and I’ll give you a reward.”

But the man of God replied, “If you were to give me half your house, I still wouldn’t go with you, and I wouldn’t eat bread or drink water in this place,

Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel. His son came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. His sons also told their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

Then their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” His sons had seen the way taken by the man of God who had come from Judah.

Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him, and he got on it.

He followed the man of God and found him sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”

“I am,” he said.

and the man of God went back with him, ate bread in his house, and drank water.

and the prophet cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Because you rebelled against the command of the Lord and did not keep the command that the Lord your God commanded you—

When the prophet who had brought him back from his way heard about it, he said, “He is the man of God who disobeyed the command of the Lord. The Lord has given him to the lion, and it has mauled and killed him, according to the word of the Lord that He spoke to him.”

and he went and found the corpse of the man of God thrown on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse or mauled the donkey.

So the prophet lifted the corpse of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back. The old prophet came into the city to mourn and bury him.

After he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, you must bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones,

Go tell Jeroboam, ‘This is what the Lord God of Israel says: I raised you up from among the people, appointed you ruler over My people Israel,

“As for you, get up and go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the boy will die.

All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He alone out of Jeroboam’s house will be put in the family tomb, because out of the house of Jeroboam the Lord God of Israel found something good only in him.

For the Lord will strike Israel and the people will shake as a reed shakes in water. He will uproot Israel from this good soil that He gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates because they made their Asherah poles, provoking the Lord.

Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and went to Tirzah. As she was crossing the threshold of the house, the boy died.

Abijam walked in all the sins his father before him had committed, and he was not completely devoted to the Lord his God as his ancestor David had been.

But because of David, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem to raise up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem.

When Baasha heard about it, he quit building Ramah and stayed in Tirzah.

This was because Jeroboam had provoked the Lord God of Israel by the sins he had committed and had caused Israel to commit.

This happened because of all the sins of Baasha and those of his son Elah, which they committed and caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord God of Israel with their worthless idols.

He followed the example of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sins that he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord God of Israel with their worthless idols.

Ahab also made an Asherah pole. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives, I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!”

“Get up, go to Zarephath that belongs to Sidon and stay there. Look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you there.”

So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow woman gathering wood. Elijah called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup and let me drink.”

As she went to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.”

But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I don’t have anything baked—only a handful of flour in the jar and a bit of oil in the jug. Just now, I am gathering a couple of sticks in order to go prepare it for myself and my son so we can eat it and die.”

for this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘The flour jar will not become empty and the oil jug will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the surface of the land.”

She said to Elijah, “Man of God, what do we have in common? Have you come to remind me of my guilt and to kill my son?”

Then he cried out to the Lord and said, “My Lord God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow I am staying with by killing her son?”

Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times. He cried out to the Lord and said, “My Lord God, please let this boy’s life return to him!”

Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know you are a man of God and the Lord’s word from your mouth is true.”

As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent someone to search for you. When they said, ‘He is not here,’ he made that kingdom or nation swear they had not found you.

Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him.” But the people didn’t answer him a word.