Now King David was old, advanced in years; they covered him with clothes, but he could not get warm.

The girl was very beautiful; and she became the king’s nurse and served him, but the king was not intimate with her.

His father [David] had never rebuked him at any time by asking, “Why have you done this?” Adonijah was also a very handsome man, and he was born after Absalom.

So Bathsheba went to the king in his bedroom. Now the king was very old and weak, and Abishag the Shunammite was attending the king.

While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet came in.

The king was told, “Here is Nathan the prophet.” And when he came before the king, he bowed before the king with his face to the ground.

While he was still speaking, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest arrived. And Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are a valiant and trustworthy man and you bring good news.”

Now Solomon was told, “Behold, Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon, and behold, he has grasped the horns of the altar [seeking God’s protection], saying, ‘King Solomon must swear to me today that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’”

When David’s time to die approached, he gave instructions to Solomon his son, saying,

So David lay down with his fathers [in death] and was buried in the City of David.

Then Solomon sat on the throne of David his father, and his kingdom was firmly established.

So he said, “You know that the kingdom belonged to me [as the eldest living son] and all Israel looked to me and expected me to be king. However, the kingdom has passed [from me] and became my brother’s, for it was his from the Lord.

King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and was at that moment beside the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go, strike him down.”

So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up [to the tabernacle] and struck and killed Joab, and he was buried at his own house in the wilderness [of Judah].

But it happened after three years, that two of Shimei’s servants ran away to Achish the son of Maacah, the king of Gath. And Shimei was told, “Behold, your [runaway] servants are in Gath.”

Now Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and had returned.

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

But [in the meantime] the people were still sacrificing [to God] on the high places (hilltops) [as the pagans did to their idols], for there was no [permanent] house yet built for the Name of the Lord.

The king went to Gibeon [near Jerusalem, where the tabernacle and the bronze altar stood] to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

behold, I have done as you asked. I have given you a wise and discerning heart (mind), so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall anyone equal to you arise after you.

Then Solomon awoke, and he realized that it was a dream. He came [back] to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and he prepared a feast for all his servants.

And the one woman said, “O my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.

And on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. And we were [alone] together; no one else was with us in the house, just we two.

When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the morning, behold, it was not my son, the one whom I had borne.”

When all [the people of] Israel heard about the judgment which the king had made, they [were in awe and reverently] feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was within him to administer justice.

King Solomon was king over all [the people of] Israel.

These were his [chief] officials: Azariah the son of Zadok was the high priest;

Elihoreph and Ahijah the sons of Shisha, were scribes; Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder [of important events];

Azariah the son of Nathan was in charge of the deputies; Zabud the son of Nathan was priest and was the king’s friend [and trusted advisor];

Ahishar was in charge of the household (palace); and Adoniram the son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor.

Geber the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan; and he was the only officer who was in the land.

Solomon’s food [for the royal household] for one day was thirty kors of finely milled flour, sixty kors of wheat flour,

They also brought the barley and straw for the horses and swift steeds (warhorses, chargers) to the place where it was needed, each man according to his assignment.

For he was wiser than all [other] men, [wiser] than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. His fame was known in all the surrounding nations.

Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always been a friend of David.

The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as He promised him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

King Solomon levied forced laborers from all Israel; and the forced laborers numbered 30,000 men.

He sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in shifts; one month they were in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced laborers.

The length of the house which King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits (90 ft.), its width twenty (30 ft.), and its height thirty cubits (45 ft.).

The porch in front of the main room of the house (temple) was twenty cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and its depth in front of the house was ten cubits.

While it was being built, the house was built of stone prepared and finished (precut) at the quarry, and no hammer, axe, or iron tool of any kind was heard in the house while it was under construction.

The entrance to the lowest side chamber was on the right [or south] side of the house; and they would go up winding stairs to the middle [level], and from the middle to the third.

Then he built the extensions [of rooms] against the entire house, each [story] five cubits high; and they were attached to the house with timbers of cedar.

The [rest of the] house, that is, the temple in front of the Holy of Holies, was forty cubits long.

The cedar on the house within had wood carvings in the shape of gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was visible.

The Holy of Holies was twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in height (a cube), and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the cedar altar [with gold].

Then he overlaid the entire house with gold, until the whole house was finished. He also overlaid the entire [incense] altar which was by the Holy of Holies with gold.

One wing of the cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing was also five cubits long; it was ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other.

the height of the one cherub was ten cubits, as was the other.

For the entrance of the Holy of Holies he made two [folding] doors of olive wood, the lintel (header above the door) and five-sided doorposts (frames).

In the fourth year [of King Solomon’s reign] the foundation of the Lord’s house was laid, in the [second] month, Ziv (April-May).

In the eleventh year [of King Solomon’s reign] in the month of Bul (October-November), that is, the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and in accordance with all its specifications. So he built it in seven years.

Now Solomon built his own house (palace) in thirteen years, and he finished all of his house [in that time].

He also built the House of the Forest of Lebanon; its length was a hundred cubits (150 ft.), its width fifty cubits (75 ft.), and its height thirty cubits (45 ft.), upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars.

And it was covered with cedar [as a roof] on the supporting beams that were upon the forty-five pillars, fifteen in each row.

All the doorways and doorposts [and windows] had squared [artistic] frames, and window was opposite window in three tiers.

He also made the Hall of Pillars; its length was fifty cubits (75 ft.) and its width thirty cubits (45 ft.). There was a porch in front, and pillars and a threshold in front of them.

He made the hall for the throne where he was to judge, the Hall of Judgment; it was paneled with cedar from [one] floor to [another] floor.

His house where he was to live, the other courtyard behind the hall, was of similar workmanship. Solomon also made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.

The foundation was of expensive stones, large stones, stones of ten cubits and stones of eight cubits.

So the great courtyard all around had three rows of cut stone and a row of cedar beams like the inner courtyard of the house of the Lord, and the porch of the house.

He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Hiram was filled with wisdom, understanding, and skill for doing any [kind of] work in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and did all his [bronze] work.

He also made two capitals (crowns) of cast bronze to put on the tops of the pillars; the height of one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits.

On the tops of the pillars was lily work (design). So the work of the pillars was finished.

It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three west, three south, and three east; the Sea was set on top of them, and all their rear parts pointed inward.

It was a hand width thick, and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.

On the borders between the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim; and on the frames there was a pedestal above. Beneath the lions and oxen were borders of hanging work.

Its opening inside the crown at the top measured a cubit, and its opening was round like the design of a pedestal, a cubit and a half. Also on its opening were carvings, and their borders were square, not round.

Underneath the borders were four wheels, and the axles of the wheels were on the stand. And the height of a wheel was a cubit and a half.

On the top of the stand there was a circular piece half a cubit high, and on the top of the stand its supports and borders were part of it.

Then he made ten basins of bronze; each basin held forty baths and was four cubits, and there was one basin on each of the ten stands.

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

So all the work that King Solomon did on the house of the Lord was completed. Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the utensils—and he put them in the treasuries of the Lord’s house.

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb (Sinai), where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Now it was [determined] in the heart of my father David to build a house (temple) for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to my father David, ‘Because it was in your heart to build a house for My Name, you did well, in that it was in your heart.

May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us nor abandon us [to our enemies],

On that same day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was in front of the house (temple) of the Lord; for he offered there the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to hold [all] the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat of the peace offerings.

Now it happened when Solomon had finished building the house (temple) of the Lord and the king’s house (palace), and all else which he was pleased to do,

So she came to Jerusalem with a very large caravan (entourage), with camels carrying spices, a great quantity of gold, and precious stones. When she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about everything that was on her mind [to discover the extent of his wisdom].

Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king which he did not explain to her.

the food on his table, the seating of his servants (court officials), the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, his stairway by which he went up to the house (temple) of the Lord, she was breathless and awed [by the wonder of it all].

Then she told the king, “The report which I heard in my own land about your words and wisdom is true!

I did not believe the report until I came and saw it with my own eyes. Behold, the half of it was not told to me. You exceed in wisdom and prosperity the report which I heard.

Now the weight of the gold that came to Solomon in one [particular] year was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold,

The throne had six steps, and a round top was attached to the throne from the back. On either side of the seat were armrests, and two lions stood beside the armrests.

Twelve lions stood there, one on either end of each of the six steps; there was nothing like it made for any other kingdom.

All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were of silver; it was not considered valuable in the days of Solomon.

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not completely devoted to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.

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

Then the Lord stirred up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of royal descent in Edom.

For it came about, when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury those killed [in battle] and had struck down every male in Edom

The sister of Tahpenes gave birth to Genubath, Hadad’s son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s household among the sons of Pharaoh.

But when Hadad heard in Egypt that David had died and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Let me leave, so that I may go to my own country.”

So Rezon was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, along with the evil that Hadad inflicted. Rezon hated Israel and reigned over Aram (Syria).

Jeroboam, Solomon’s servant, the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite of Zeredah whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also rebelled against the king.

The man Jeroboam was a brave warrior and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he put him in charge of all the forced labor of the house of Joseph.

So Solomon attempted to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam set out and escaped to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and stayed in Egypt until Solomon died.

The time Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

And Solomon slept [in death] with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.