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.

but Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David’s warriors did not side with Adonijah.

Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it?

Go, approach King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, did you not swear to your servant: Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne? So why has Adonijah become king?’

So Bathsheba went to the king in his bedroom. Since the king was very old, Abishag the Shunammite was serving him.

He has lavishly sacrificed oxen, fattened cattle, and sheep. He invited all the king’s sons, Abiathar the priest, and Joab the commander of the army, but he did not invite your servant Solomon.

and it was announced to the king, “Nathan the prophet is here.” He came into the king’s presence and bowed to him with his face to the ground.

“My lord the king,” Nathan said, “did you say, ‘Adonijah is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne’?

I’m certain my lord the king would not have let this happen without letting your servant know who will sit on my lord the king’s throne after him.”

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

King David then said, “Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada for me.” So they came into the king’s presence.

There, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet are to anoint him as king over Israel. You are to blow the ram’s horn and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’

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

Just as the Lord was with my lord the king, so may He be with Solomon and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David.”

Then Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites went down, had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and took him to Gihon.

Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. Then they blew the ram’s horn, and all the people proclaimed, “Long live King Solomon!”

Adonijah and all the invited guests who were with him heard the noise as they finished eating. Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn and said, “Why is the town in such an uproar?”

And with Solomon, the king has sent Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have had him ride on the king’s mule.

Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon. They have gone from there rejoicing. The town has been in an uproar; that’s the noise you heard.

“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.

So King Solomon sent for him, and they took him down from the altar. He came and paid homage to King Solomon, and Solomon said to him, “Go to your home.”

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,

and so that the Lord will carry out His promise that He made to me: ‘If your sons are careful to walk faithfully before Me with their whole mind and heart, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

“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.

So don’t let him go unpunished, for you are a wise man. You know how to deal with him to bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood.”

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

“Peacefully,” he replied,

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.

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

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.

So Solomon banished Abiathar from being the Lord’s priest, and it fulfilled the Lord’s prophecy He had spoken at Shiloh against Eli’s family.

The news reached Joab. Since he had supported Adonijah but not Absalom, Joab fled to the Lord’s tabernacle and took hold of the horns of the altar.

It was reported to King Solomon: “Joab has fled to the Lord’s tabernacle and is now beside the altar.” Then Solomon sent Benaiah son of Jehoiada and told him, “Go and strike him down!”

So Benaiah went to the tabernacle and said to Joab, “This is what the king says: ‘Come out!’”

But Joab said, “No, for I will die here.”

So Benaiah took a message back to the king, “This is what Joab said, and this is how he answered me.”

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.

The Lord will bring back his own blood on his head because he struck down two men more righteous and better than he, without my father David’s knowledge. With his sword, Joab murdered Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel’s army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah’s army.

Their blood will come back on Joab’s head and on the head of his descendants forever, but for David, his descendants, his dynasty, and his throne, there will be peace from the Lord forever.”

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

But then, at the end of three years, two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath. Shimei was informed, “Look, your slaves are in Gath.”

So Shimei saddled his donkey and set out to Achish at Gath to search for his slaves. He went and brought them back from Gath.

So the king summoned Shimei and said to him, “Didn’t I make you swear by the Lord and warn you, saying, ‘On the day you leave and go anywhere else, know for sure that you will certainly die’? And you said to me, ‘The sentence is fair; I will obey.’

So why have you not kept the Lord’s oath and the command that I gave you?”

but King Solomon will be blessed, and David’s throne will remain established before the Lord forever.”

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

Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter. Solomon brought her to live in the city of David until he finished building his palace, the Lord’s temple, and the wall surrounding Jerusalem.

However, the people were sacrificing on the high places, because until that time a temple for the Lord’s name had not been built.

“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,

I will therefore do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before and never will be again.

In addition, I will give you what you did not ask for: both riches and honor, so that no man in any kingdom will be your equal during your entire life.

Then Solomon woke up and realized it had been a dream. He went to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the Lord’s covenant, and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then he held a feast for all his servants.

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

“No,” the other woman said. “My son is the living one; your son is the dead one.”

The first woman said, “No, your son is the dead one; my son is the living one.” So they argued before the king.

The king continued, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought the sword to the king.

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.

Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.

Solomon’s provisions for one day were 150 bushels of fine flour and 300 bushels of meal,

Throughout Solomon’s reign, Judah and Israel lived in safety from Dan to Beer-sheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

Each of those deputies for a month in turn provided food for King Solomon and for everyone who came to King Solomon’s table. They neglected nothing.

Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

People came from everywhere, sent by every king on earth who had heard of his wisdom, to listen to Solomon’s wisdom.

Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that he had been anointed king in his father’s place, for Hiram had always been friends with David.

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.”

When Hiram heard Solomon’s words, he greatly rejoiced and said, “May the Lord be praised today! He has given David a wise son to be over this great people!”

My servants will bring the logs down from Lebanon to the sea, and I will make them into rafts to go by sea to the place you indicate. I will break them apart there, and you can take them away. You then can meet my needs by providing my household with food.”

So Hiram provided Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber he wanted,

So Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the temple’s construction.

The portico in front of the temple sanctuary was 30 feet long extending across the temple’s width, and 15 feet deep in front of the temple.

The lowest chamber was 7½ feet wide, the middle was nine feet wide, and the third was 10½ feet wide. He also provided offset ledges for the temple all around the outside so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

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.

He prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple to put the ark of the Lord’s covenant there.

So he added the gold overlay to the entire temple until everything was completely finished, including the entire altar that belongs to the inner sanctuary.

The first cherub’s height was 15 feet and so was the second cherub’s.

Then he put the cherubim inside the inner temple. Since their wings were spread out, the first one’s wing touched one wall while the second cherub’s wing touched the other wall, and in the middle of the temple their wings were touching wing to wing.

The foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid in Solomon’s fourth year in the month of Ziv.

In his eleventh year in the eighth month, in the month of Bul, the temple was completed in every detail and according to every specification. So he built it in seven years.

Solomon’s own palace where he would live, in the other courtyard behind the hall, was of similar construction. And he made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, his wife.

Around the great courtyard, as well as the inner courtyard of the Lord’s temple and the portico of the temple, were three rows of dressed stone and a row of trimmed cedar beams.

He was a widow’s son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a bronze craftsman. Hiram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge to do every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.

And the water cart’s opening inside the crown on top was 18 inches wide. The opening was round, made as a pedestal 27 inches wide. On it were carvings, but their frames were square, not round.

Then Hiram made the basins, the shovels, and the sprinkling basins.

So Hiram finished all the work that he was doing for King Solomon on the Lord’s temple:

and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling basins. All the utensils that Hiram made for King Solomon at the Lord’s temple were made of burnished bronze.

Solomon left all the utensils unweighed because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

Solomon also made all the equipment in the Lord’s temple: the gold altar; the gold table that the bread of the Presence was placed on;

So all the work King Solomon did in the Lord’s temple was completed. Then Solomon brought in the consecrated things of his father David—the silver, the gold, and the utensils—and put them in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple.

At that time Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the tribal heads and the ancestral leaders of the Israelites before him at Jerusalem in order to bring the ark of the Lord’s covenant from the city of David, that is Zion.

So all the men of Israel were assembled in the presence of King Solomon in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim, at the festival.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him and were with him in front of the ark, were sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted or numbered, because there were so many.

The priests brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place beneath the wings of the cherubim.

For the cherubim were spreading their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim covered the ark and its poles from above.

The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen from outside the sanctuary; they are there to this day.

When the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the Lord’s temple,

“Since the day I brought My people Israel out of Egypt,
I have not chosen a city to build a temple in
among any of the tribes of Israel,
so that My name would be there.
But I have chosen David to rule My people Israel.”

I have provided a place there for the ark,
where the Lord’s covenant is
that He made with our ancestors
when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.