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.”

The girl was of unsurpassed beauty, and she became the king’s caregiver. She served him, but he was not intimate with her.

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.’

At that moment, while she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet arrived,

King David responded by saying, “Call in Bathsheba for me.” So she came into the king’s presence and stood before him.

“You also know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me and what he did to the two commanders of Israel’s army, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He murdered them in a time of peace to avenge blood shed in war. He spilled that blood on his own waistband and on the sandals of his feet.

Now Adonijah son of Haggith came to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother. She asked, “Do you come peacefully?”

“Peacefully,” he replied,

and then asked, “May I talk with you?”

“Go ahead,” she answered.

So now I have just one request of you; don’t turn me down.”

She said to him, “Go on.”

So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him about Adonijah. The king stood up to greet her, bowed to her, sat down on his throne, and had a throne placed for the king’s mother. So she sat down at his right hand.

Then she said, “I have just one small request of you. Don’t turn me down.”

“Go ahead and ask, mother,” the king replied, “for I won’t turn you down.”

So she said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to your brother Adonijah as a wife.”

The king said to him, “Do just as he says. Strike him down and bury him in order to remove from me and from my father’s house the blood that Joab shed without just cause.

One woman said, “Please my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was in the house.

On the third day after I gave birth, she also had a baby and we were alone. No one else was with us in the house; just the two of us were there.

During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him.

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.

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!”

The king responded, “Give the living baby to the first woman, and don’t kill him. She is his mother.”

She came to Jerusalem with a very large entourage, with camels bearing spices, gold in great abundance, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and spoke to him about everything that was on her mind.

She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your words and about your wisdom is true.

Then she gave the king four and a half tons of gold, a great quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did such a quantity of spices arrive as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba her every desire—whatever she asked—besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she, along with her servants, returned to her own country.

Jeroboam’s wife did that: she went to Shiloh and arrived at Ahijah’s house. Ahijah could not see; his gaze was fixed due to his age.

But the Lord had said to Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming soon to ask you about her son, for he is sick. You are to say such and such to her. When she arrives, she will be disguised.”

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

He also removed his grandmother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

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.”

So she proceeded to do according to the word of Elijah. Then the woman, Elijah, and her household ate for many days.

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?”

So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal. She sent the letters to the elders and nobles who lived with Naboth in his city.

In the letters, she wrote:

Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people.

The men of his city, the elders and nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had commanded them, as was written in the letters she had sent them.

When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, “Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite who refused to give it to you for silver, since Naboth isn’t alive, but dead.”