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.”

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?

At that moment, while you are still there speaking with the king, I’ll come in after you and confirm your words.”

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

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.”

All the people followed him, playing flutes and rejoicing with such a great joy that the earth split open from the sound.

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.

It was reported to Solomon: “Look, Adonijah fears King Solomon, and he has taken hold of the horns of the altar, saying, ‘Let King Solomon first swear to me that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’”

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.

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.”

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.

On the day you do leave and cross the Kidron Valley, know for sure that you will certainly die. Your blood will be on your own head.”

It was reported to Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had returned.

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?”

The king also said, “You yourself know all the evil that you did to my father David. Therefore, the Lord has brought back your evil on your head,

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

The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there because it was the most famous high place. He offered 1,000 burnt offerings on that altar.

Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this.

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.

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.”

The king replied, “This woman says, ‘This is my son who is alive, and your son is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead, and my son is alive.’”

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.

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.

“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 that King Solomon built for the Lord was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

He then built a chambered structure along the temple wall, encircling the walls of the temple, that is, the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around.

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.

The temple, that is, the sanctuary in front of the most holy place, was 60 feet long.

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.

It was paneled above with cedar at the top of the chambers that rested on 45 pillars, 15 per row.

The wheels’ design was similar to that of chariot wheels: their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all of cast metal.

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:

two pillars; bowls for the capitals that were on top of the two pillars; the two gratings for covering both bowls of the capitals that were on top of the pillars;

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 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;

the pure gold ceremonial bowls, wick trimmers, sprinkling basins, ladles, and firepans; and the gold hinges for the doors of the inner temple (that is, the most holy place) and for the doors of the temple sanctuary.

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.

The priests and the Levites brought the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and the holy utensils that were in the tent.

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.

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.

Nothing was in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Then Solomon said:

The Lord said that He would dwell in thick darkness.

“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.

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,

so that Your eyes may watch over this temple night and day,
toward the place where You said:
My name will be there,
and so that You may hear the prayer
that Your servant prays toward this place.

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.

so that they may fear You
all the days they live on the land
You gave our ancestors.

may You hear in heaven, Your dwelling place,
and do according to all the foreigner asks You for.
Then all the people on earth will know Your name,
to fear You as Your people Israel do
and know that this temple I have built
is called by Your name.

and when they return to You with their whole mind and heart
in the land of their enemies who took them captive,
and when they pray to You in the direction of their land
that You gave their ancestors,
the city You have chosen,
and the temple I have built for Your name,

May You forgive Your people
who sinned against You
and all their rebellions against You,
and may You give them compassion
in the eyes of their captors,
so that they may be compassionate to them.

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!

On the same day, the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s temple because that was where he offered the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat of the fellowship offerings since the bronze altar before the Lord was too small to accommodate the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the fellowship offerings.

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.

On the fifteenth day he sent the people away. So they blessed the king and went home to their tents rejoicing and with joyful hearts for all the goodness that the Lord had done for His servant David and for His people Israel.

When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do,

If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands—My statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and worship them,

So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.

This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon had imposed to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.

Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David to the house that Solomon had built for her; he then built the terraces.

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.

In addition, Hiram’s fleet that carried gold from Ophir brought from Ophir a large quantity of almug wood and precious stones.

The weight of gold that came to Solomon annually was 25 tons,

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

from the nations that the Lord had told the Israelites about, “Do not intermarry with them, and they must not intermarry with you, because they will turn you away from Me to their gods.” Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them.

At that time, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the detestable idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the detestable idol of the Ammonites, on the hill across from Jerusalem.

He had commanded him about this, so that he would not follow other gods, but Solomon did not do what the Lord had commanded.

Yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son because of my servant David and because of Jerusalem that I chose.”

Hadad and his men set out from Midian and went to Paran. They took men with them from Paran and went to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave Hadad a house, ordered that he be given food, and gave him land.

Pharaoh liked Hadad so much that he gave him a wife, the sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes.

When Hadad heard in Egypt that David rested with his fathers and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me leave, so I can go to my own country.”

During that time, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met Jeroboam on the road as Jeroboam came out of Jerusalem. Now Ahijah had wrapped himself with a new cloak, and the two of them were alone in the open field.

I will give one tribe to his son, so that My servant David will always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city I chose for Myself to put My name there.

“‘After that, if you obey all I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight in order to keep My statutes and My commands as My servant David did, I will be with you. I will build you a lasting dynasty just as I built for David, and I will give you Israel.

He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him:

What portion do we have in David?
We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
Israel, return to your tents;
David, now look after your own house!

So Israel went to their tents,

When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No one followed the house of David except the tribe of Judah alone.

He gave a sign that day. He said, “This is the sign that the Lord has spoken: ‘The altar will now be ripped apart, and the ashes that are on it will be poured out.’”

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.

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.

He said to him, “I am also a prophet like you. An angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” The old prophet deceived him,

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—

but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place that He said to you, “Do not eat bread and do not drink water”— your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.’”

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.”

for the word that he cried out by a revelation from the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the cities of Samaria is certain to happen.”

This was the sin that caused the house of Jeroboam to be wiped out and annihilated from the face of the earth.

At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became sick.

Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go disguise yourself, so they won’t know that you’re Jeroboam’s wife, and go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there; it was he who told about me becoming king over this people.

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.

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.