While you are still there speaking to the king, I will arrive and verify your report."

There Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet will anoint him king over Israel; then blow the trumpet and declare, 'Long live King Solomon!'

Now Adonijah and all his guests heard the commotion just as they had finished eating. When Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he asked, "Why is there such a noisy commotion in the city?"

Then Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed him king in Gihon. They went up from there rejoicing, and the city is in an uproar. That is the sound you hear.

When King Solomon heard that Joab had run to the tent of the Lord and was right there beside the altar, he ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada, "Go, strike him down."

Next the king summoned Shimei and told him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there -- but you may not leave there to go anywhere!

The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for it had the most prominent of the high places. Solomon would offer up a thousand burnt sacrifices on the altar there.

Then three days after I had my baby, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one else in the house except the two of us.

I got up in the morning to nurse my son, and there he was, dead! But when I examined him carefully in the morning, I realized it was not my baby."

But now the Lord my God has made me secure on all fronts; there is no adversary or dangerous threat.

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."

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.

There were three rows of windows arranged in sets of three.

He made a colonnade 75 feet long and 45 feet wide. There was a porch in front of this and pillars and a roof in front of the porch.

When he made the pillars, there were two rows of pomegranate-shaped ornaments around the latticework covering the top of each pillar.

On the top of each pillar, right above the bulge beside the latticework, there were two hundred pomegranate-shaped ornaments arranged in rows all the way around.

On top of each stand was a round opening three-quarters of a foot deep; there were also supports and frames on top of the stands.

He engraved ornamental cherubs, lions, and palm trees on the plates of the supports and frames wherever there was room, with wreaths all around.

He also made ten bronze basins, each of which could hold about 240 gallons. Each basin was six feet in diameter; there was one basin for each stand.

Solomon left all these items unweighed; there were so many of them they did not weigh the bronze.

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.

There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. It was there that the Lord made an agreement with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Then the king turned around and pronounced a blessing over the whole Israelite assembly as they stood there.

He prayed: "O Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below! You maintain covenantal loyalty to your servants who obey you with sincerity.

"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.

That day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that is in front of the Lord's temple. He offered there burnt sacrifices, grain offerings, and the fat from the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that stood before the Lord was too small to hold all these offerings.

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.

These men were also in charge of Solomon's work projects; there were a total of 550 men who supervised the workers.

They sailed to Ophir, took from there four hundred twenty talents of gold, and then brought them to King Solomon.

Solomon answered all her questions; there was no question too complex for the king.

There were six steps leading up to the throne, and the back of it was rounded on top. The throne had two armrests with a statue of a lion standing on each side.

There were twelve statues of lions on the six steps, one lion at each end of each step. There was nothing like it in any other kingdom.

All of King Solomon's cups were made of gold, and all the household items in the Palace of the Lebanon Forest were made of pure gold. There were no silver items, for silver was not considered very valuable in Solomon's time.

For six months Joab and the entire Israelite army stayed there until they had exterminated every male in Edom.

Jeroboam built up Shechem in the Ephraimite hill country and lived there. From there he went out and built up Penuel.

For the Lord gave me strict orders, 'Do not eat or drink there and do not go home the way you came.'"

Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. When his sons came home, they told their father everything the prophet had done in Bethel that day and all the words he had spoken to the king.

For the Lord gave me strict orders, 'Do not eat or drink there; do not go back the way you came.'"

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.'"

As the prophet from Judah was traveling, a lion attacked him on the road and killed him. His corpse was lying on the road, and the donkey and the lion just stood there beside it.

Jeroboam told his wife, "Disguise yourself so that people cannot recognize you are Jeroboam's wife. Then go to Shiloh; Ahijah the prophet, who told me I would rule over this nation, lives there.

There were also male cultic prostitutes in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

While deployed there, the army received this report: "Zimri has conspired against the king and assassinated him." So all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that very day in the camp.

He purchased the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver. He launched a construction project there and named the city he built after Shemer, the former owner of the hill of Samaria.

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."

Drink from the stream; I have already told the ravens to bring you food there."

After a while, the stream dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

"Get up, go to Zarephath in Sidonian territory, and live there. I have already told a widow who lives there to provide for you."

So he got up and went to Zarephath. When he went through the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood. He called out to her, "Please give me a cup of water, so I can take a drink."

She went and did as Elijah told her; there was always enough food for Elijah and for her and her family.

Elijah said to them: "I am the only prophet of the Lord who is left, but there are 450 prophets of Baal.

So they took a bull, as he had suggested, and prepared it. They invoked the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, "Baal, answer us." But there was no sound and no answer. They jumped around on the altar they had made.

Throughout the afternoon they were in an ecstatic frenzy, but there was no sound, no answer, and no response.

Elijah told them, "Seize the prophets of Baal! Don't let even one of them escape!" So they seized them, and Elijah led them down to the Kishon Valley and executed them there.

He told his servant, "Go on up and look in the direction of the sea." So he went on up, looked, and reported, "There is nothing." Seven times Elijah sent him to look.

Meanwhile the sky was covered with dark clouds, the wind blew, and there was a heavy rainstorm. Ahab rode toward Jezreel.

Elijah was afraid, so he got up and fled for his life to Beer Sheba in Judah. He left his servant there,

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.

He went into a cave there and spent the night. All of a sudden the Lord spoke to him, "Why are you here, Elijah?"

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.

After the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a soft whisper.

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.

Ben Hadad sent another message to him, "May the gods judge me severely if there is enough dirt left in Samaria for my soldiers to scoop up in their hands."

The men of the city, the leaders and the nobles who lived there, followed the written orders Jezebel had sent them.

"Get up, go down and meet King Ahab of Israel who lives in Samaria. He is at the vineyard of Naboth; he has gone down there to take possession of it.

(There had never been anyone like Ahab, who was firmly committed to doing evil in the sight of the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel.

There was no war between Syria and Israel for three years.

But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there not a prophet of the Lord still here, that we may ask him?"

The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, "There is still one man through whom we can seek the Lord's will. But I despise him because he does not prophesy prosperity for me, but disaster. His name is Micaiah son of Imlah. Jehoshaphat said, "The king should not say such things."

The Lord said, 'Who will deceive Ahab, so he will attack Ramoth Gilead and die there?' One said this and another that.

There was no king in Edom at this time; a governor ruled.