So his servants said to him, Let search be made for a young virgin for my lord the king, to take care of him and be waiting on him; and you may take her in your arms, and so my lord the king will be warm.

So after searching through all the land of Israel for a fair young girl, they saw Abishag the Shunammite, and took her to the king.

Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, lifting himself up in pride, said, I will become king; and he made ready his carriages of war and his horsemen, with fifty runners to go before him.

Now all his life his father had never gone against him or said to him, Why have you done so? and he was a very good-looking man, and younger than Absalom.

So now, let me make a suggestion, so that you may keep your life safe and the life of your son Solomon.

Come now, go to King David and say to him, Did you not, O my lord, take an oath to me, your servant, saying, Truly Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom? why then is Adonijah acting as king?

And while you are still talking there with the king, see, I will come in after you and say that your story is true.

And she said to him, My lord, you took an oath by the Lord your God and gave your word to your servant, saying, Truly, Solomon your son will be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom.

And now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, waiting for you to say who is to take the place of my lord the king after him.

For as things are, it will come about, when my lord the king is sleeping with his fathers, that I and Solomon my son will be made outlaws.

And Nathan said, O my lord king, have you said, Adonijah is to be king after me, seated on the seat of my kingdom?

Has this thing been done by my lord the king, without giving word to your servants who was to be placed on my lord the king's seat after him?

And the king took an oath, and said, By the living Lord, who has been my saviour from all my troubles,

As I took an oath to you by the Lord, the God of Israel, saying, Certainly Solomon your son will become king after me, seated on my seat in my place; so will I do this day.

And the king said to them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and put Solomon my son on my beast, yes, mine, and take him down to Gihon;

Then come up after him and he will come in and take his place on the seat of my kingdom; for he is to be king in my place, and I have given orders that he is to be ruler over Israel and over Judah.

And it came to the ears of Adonijah and all the guests who were with him, when their meal was ended. And Joab, hearing the sound of the horn, said, What is the reason of this noise as if the town was worked up?

And while the words were on his lips, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came; and Adonijah said, Come in; for you are a man of good faith and the news which you have for us will be good.

Then the king said, May the God of Israel be praised, who has given one of my seed to be king in my place this day and has let my eyes see it.

And all the guests of Adonijah got up in fear and went away, every man to his place.

And Solomon said, If he is seen to be a man of good faith, not a hair of him will be touched; but if any wrongdoing is seen in him, he is to be put to death.

I am going the way of all the earth: so be strong and be a man;

And keep the orders of the Lord your God, walking in his ways, keeping his laws and his orders and his rules and his words, as they are recorded in the law of Moses; so that you may do well in all you do and wherever you go,

So that the Lord may give effect to what he said of me, If your children give attention to their ways, living uprightly before me with all their heart and their soul, you will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

Now you have knowledge of what Joab, the son of Zeruiah, did to me, and to the two captains of the army of Israel, Abner, the son of Ner, and Amasa, the son of Jether, whom he put to death, taking payment for the blood of war in time of peace, and making the band of my clothing and the shoes on my feet red with the blood of one put to death without cause.

But be good to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be guests at your table; for so they came to me when I went in flight from Absalom your brother.

Now you have with you Shimei, the son of Gera the Benjamite of Bahurim, who put a bitter curse on me on the day when I went to Mahanaim; but he came down to see me at Jordan, and I gave him my oath by the Lord, saying, I will not put you to death by the sword.

But do not let him be free from punishment, for you are a wise man; and it will be clear to you what you have to do with him; see that his white head goes down to the underworld in blood.

Then Adonijah, the son of Haggith, came to Bath-sheba, the mother of Solomon. And she said, Come you in peace? And he said, Yes, in peace.

Then he said, I have something to say to you. And she said, Say on.

And he said, You saw how the kingdom was mine, and all Israel had the idea that I would be their king; but now the kingdom is turned about, and has become my brother's, for it was given to him by the Lord.

Now I have one request to make to you, and do not say, No, to me. And she said to him, Say on.

Then he said, Will you go to Solomon the king (for he will not say, No, to you) and put before him my request that he will give me Abishag the Shunammite for a wife?

And Bath-sheba said, Good! I will make your request to the king.

So Bath-sheba went to King Solomon to have talk with him on Adonijah's account. And the king got up to come to her, and went down low to the earth before her; then he took his place on the king's seat and had a seat made ready for the king's mother and she took her place at his right hand.

Then she said, I have one small request to make to you; do not say, No, to me. And the king said, Say on, my mother, for I will not say, No, to you.

And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother for a wife.

Then King Solomon made answer and said to his mother, Why are you requesting me to give Abishag the Shunammite to Adonijah? Take the kingdom for him in addition, for he is my older brother, and Abiathar the priest and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, are on his side.

Now by the living Lord, who has given me my place on the seat of David my father, and made me one of a line of kings, as he gave me his word, truly Adonijah will be put to death this day.

And to Abiathar the priest the king said, Go to Anathoth, to your fields; for death would be your right reward; but I will not put you to death now, because you took up the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and you were with him in all his troubles.

And the king said, Do as he has said and make an attack on him there, and put his body into the earth; so that you may take away from me and from my family the blood of one put to death by Joab without cause.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Make a house for yourself in Jerusalem and keep there and go to no other place.

For be certain that on the day when you go out and go over the stream Kidron, death will overtake you: and your blood will be on your head.

And Shimei said to the king, Very well! as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do. And for a long time Shimei went on living in Jerusalem.

Then the king sent for Shimei, and said to him, Did I not make you take an oath by the Lord, protesting to you and saying, Be certain that on the day when you go out from here, wherever you go, death will overtake you? and you said to me, Very well!

Why then have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the order which I gave you?

And the king said to Shimei, You have knowledge of all the evil which you did to David my father; and now the Lord has sent back your evil on yourself.

But a blessing will be on King Solomon, and the kingdom of David will keep its place before the Lord for ever.

And the king went to Gibeon to make an offering there, because that was the chief high place: it was Solomon's way to make a thousand burned offerings on that altar.

In Gibeon, Solomon had a vision of the Lord in a dream by night; and God said to him, Say what I am to give you.

And Solomon said, Great was your mercy to David my father, as his life before you was true and upright and his heart was true to you; and you have kept for him this greatest mercy, a son to take his place this day.

And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of David my father; and I am only a young boy, with no knowledge of how to go out or come in.

And your servant has round him the people of your selection, a people so great that they may not be numbered, and no account of them may be given.

Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people?

And God said to him, Because your request is for this thing, and not for long life for yourself or for wealth or for the destruction of your haters, but for wisdom to be a judge of causes;

I have done as you said: I have given you a wise and far-seeing heart, so that there has never been your equal in the past, and never will there be any like you in the future.

And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal.

And if you go on in my ways, keeping my laws and my orders as your father David did, I will give you a long life.

And Solomon, awakening, saw that it was a dream; then he came to Jerusalem, where he went before the ark of the agreement of the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings; and he made a feast for all his servants.

And one of them said, O my lord, I and this woman are living in the same house; and I gave birth to a child by her side in the house.

And three days after the birth of my child, this woman had a child: we were together, no other-person was with us in the house but we two only.

And when I got up to give my child the breast, I saw that it was dead; but in the morning, looking at it with care, I saw that it was not my son.

Then he said, Get me a sword. So they went and put a sword before the king.

Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two.

Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.

Ten fat oxen and twenty oxen from the fields, and a hundred sheep, in addition to harts and gazelles and roes and fat fowls.

And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside.

For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about.

He was the maker of three thousand wise sayings, and of songs to the number of a thousand and five.

People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.

Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David.

You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet.

And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name.

So now, will you have cedar-trees from Lebanon cut down for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you payment for your servants at whatever rate you say; for it is common knowledge that we have no such wood-cutters among us as the men of Zidon.

And these words of Solomon made Hiram glad, and he said, Now may the Lord be praised who has given to David a wise son to be king over this great people.

Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying; The words you sent have been given to me: I will do all your desire in the question of cedar-wood and cypress-wood.

My men will take them down from Lebanon to the sea, where I will have them corded together to go by sea to whatever place you say, and I will have them cut up there so that you may take them away; as for payment, it will be enough if you give me food for my people.

And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them.

The covered way before the Temple of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and ten cubits wide in front of the house.

The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house.

About this house which you are building: if you will keep my laws and give effect to my decisions and be guided by my rules, I will give effect to my word which I gave to David your father.

And I will be ever among the children of Israel, and will not go away from my people.

And at the back of the house a further space of twenty cubits was shut in with boards of cedar-wood, for the inmost room.

For the way into the inmost room he made doors of olive-wood, the arch and the door supports forming a five-sided opening.

Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square:

And the inner space was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards.

Solomon was thirteen years building a house for himself till it was complete.

And he made the house of the Woods of Lebanon, which was a hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high, resting on four lines of cedar-wood pillars with cedar-wood supports on the pillars.

And it was covered with cedar over the forty-five supports which were on the pillars, fifteen in a line.

And he made a covered room of pillars, fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide, and ... with steps before it.

Then he made a covered room for his high seat when he gave decisions; this was the covered room of judging; it was covered with cedar-wood from floor to roof.

And the house for his living-place, the other open square in the covered room, was made in the same way. And then he made a house like it for Pharaoh's daughter, whom Solomon had taken as his wife.

The great outer square all round was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards, round about the open square inside the house of the Lord and the covered room of the king's house.

He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in brass; he was full of wisdom and knowledge and an expert worker in brass. He came to King Solomon and did all his work for him.

He it was who made the two brass pillars; the first pillar was eighteen cubits high, and a line of twelve cubits went round it; and the second was the same.

There were nets of open-work for the crowns on the tops of the pillars, a net of open-work for one and a net of open-work for the other.

And he made ornaments of apples; and two lines of apples all round over the network, covering the crowns of the pillars, the two crowns in the same way.

The crowns on the tops of the pillars were ornamented with a design of flowers, and were four cubits across.

The tops of the pillars had a design of flowers; and the work of making the pillars was complete.

And he made a great metal water-vessel ten cubits across from edge to edge, five cubits high and thirty cubits round.