"You know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me -- how he murdered two commanders of the Israelite armies, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. During peacetime he struck them down like he would in battle; when he shed their blood as if in battle, he stained his own belt and the sandals on his feet.

He said, "Please ask King Solomon if he would give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife, for he won't refuse you."

She said, "I would like to ask you for just one small favor. Please don't refuse me." He said, "Go ahead and ask, my mother, for I would not refuse you."

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.

The bottom floor of the extension was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet wide, and the third floor ten and a half feet wide. He made ledges on the temple's outer walls so the beams would not have to be inserted into the walls.

He built a wall 30 feet in from the rear of the temple as a partition for an inner sanctuary that would be the most holy place. He paneled the wall with cedar planks from the floor to the rafters.

Night and day may you watch over this temple, the place where you promised you would live. May you answer your servant's prayer for this place.

and had warned him about this very thing, so that he would not follow other gods. But he did not obey the Lord's command.

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.

The ravens would bring him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he would drink from the stream.

But when I leave you, the Lord's spirit will carry you away so I can't find you. If I go tell Ahab I've seen you, he won't be able to find you and he will kill me. That would not be fair, because your servant has been a loyal follower of the Lord from my youth.

So Ahab went into his palace, bitter and angry that Naboth the Jezreelite had said, "I will not sell to you my ancestral inheritance." He lay down on his bed, pouted, and would not eat.

They washed off the chariot at the pool of Samaria (this was where the prostitutes bathed); dogs licked his blood, just as the Lord had said would happen.