so his servants suggested to him, "Let's look for a young virgin woman to take care of you, your majesty. She will be of use to you if you have her lie down near you so that your majesty may keep warm."

So they conducted a search throughout the territory of Israel for a beautiful young woman, and Abishag the Shunammite was located and brought to the king.

The young woman was absolutely beautiful. She served the king and was very useful to him. The king was not sexually involved with her.

Meanwhile, about this time Haggith's son Adonijah began to seek a reputation for himself and decided, "I'm going to be king!" So he prepared chariots, cavalry, and 50 soldiers to serve as a security detail to guard him.

but Zadok the priest, Jehoiada's son Benaiah, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David's personal elite forces would have nothing to do with Adonijah.

"Haven't you heard?" Nathan asked Solomon's mother Bathsheba. "Haggith's son Adonijah has become king and David, our true king, isn't aware of it.

If you listen to me, you'll save your life and the life of your son Solomon.

Go right now to King David and ask him, "Your majesty, you promised your servant that "Your son Solomon will certainly become king after me and will sit on my throne," didn't you? So why has Adonijah become king?'

Then, while you are still talking to the king, I'll come in after you and verify your statement."

So Bathsheba went to the king in his private room. Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was attending to him.

Bathsheba knelt and bowed down to the king, and the king asked her, "What do you wish?"

And as for you, your majesty, everyone in Israel is looking to you to tell them who will sit on your majesty's throne after you.

Otherwise, as soon as your majesty is laid to rest with his ancestors, my son Solomon and I will be branded as traitors."

While she was still talking to the king, Nathan the prophet arrived.

When he had been ushered into the presence of the king, Nathan bowed low in front of the king with his face to the ground and asked, "Your majesty, did you say "Adonijah will be king after me and will sit on my throne'?

I certainly did tell you in the name of the LORD God of Israel, "Your son Solomon will be king after me and will sit on my throne in my place.' I'm certainly going to make this happen today!"

"King David," Bathsheba said as she bowed low in front of the king with her face to the ground, "your majesty, may you live forever."

and David addressed them. "Take your lord's servants, have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon.

After this, you are to follow him back here, and he is to come and sit on my throne and take my place as king, because I've appointed him to be Commander-in-Chief over Israel and Judah."

"Amen!" replied Jehoiada's son Benaiah to the king. "May the LORD God of your majesty make this happen!

So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Jehoiada's son Benaiah, the special forces and mercenaries went out and had Solomon ride the king's mule all the way to Gihon.

In addition to all of this, the king's servants have come along to congratulate our lord King David. They've been telling David "May your God make Solomon's reputation even more famous than yours, and may he make his throne greater than yours!' The king has himself bowed in worship on his own bed

and said "Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has provided someone to sit on my throne today. I've seen it with my own eyes!'"

"Hey look!" somebody informed Solomon. "Adonijah is terrified of King Solomon! He's gone out, grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, and now he's begging King Solomon, "Swear to me that you won't put your servant to death with a sword!'"

As David's time to die approached, he addressed his son Solomon with these words:

by keeping the charge that the LORD your God entrusted to you. Live life his way, keep his statutes, his commands, his ordinances, and his testimonies, just as they're written down in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in everything you do and wherever you go,

and so that the LORD may fulfill his promise that he spoke about me when he said, "If your sons pay attention to how they live by walking truthfully in my presence with all their heart and with all their soul, you will never lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

"Furthermore, you're aware of what Zeruiah's son Joab did to me and to those two commanders of the armies of Israel, Ner's son Abner and Jether's son Amasa, whom he killed, and how he shed the blood of wartime during times of peace, staining the very belt he wears around his waist and the sandals he wears on his feet.

So act consistently with your wisdom, and don't let him die as a peaceful old man.

Be gracious to the descendants of Barzillai the Gileadite, and provide for them in your household, because they helped me when I had to run from your brother Absalom.

"Pay attention now! You have with you Gera's son Shimei the descendant of Benjamin from Bahurim. He cursed me violently that day when I had to leave for Mahanaim. When he visited me at the Jordan River, I made an oath to the LORD and told him, "I won't execute you with a sword.'

But don't let him off unpunished, since you're a wise man and you'll know what you need to do to him. Find a way that he dies in his old age by shedding his blood."

"Yes," he replied. "I have something to ask you about." "Talk," she told him.

So he replied, "You know that the kingdom should have come to me, and that everyone in Israel intended to place me as the next king. However, the kingdom has turned around and now belongs to my brother, because it went to him from the LORD.

So now I'm asking one thing from you. Don't refuse me." "Talk," she told him.

Then he asked her, "Please talk to King Solomon for me, since he won't refuse you. Ask him to give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife."

"Okay," Bathsheba replied. "I'll talk to the king for you."

So Bathsheba went to talk to King Solomon for Adonijah. The king rose to meet her, bowed to her, and sat down on his throne. He ordered a throne be set in place for his mother. She sat on a throne to his right

and told him, "I would like to make a minor request of you. Please don't refuse me." "What is your request, mother?" the king asked her. "I won't turn you down."

So she asked him, "Give Abishag the Shunammite to your brother Adonijah as a wife."

But King Solomon replied to his mother, "Why are you asking Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Why not ask me to give up the kingdom for him, since he's my older brother, and why not ask for Abiathar the priest, and for Zeruiah's son Joab?"

Then King Solomon took this oath in the name of the LORD: "May God do so to me, and more besides, if Adonijah hasn't endangered his life by bringing up this subject.

The king also told Abiathar the priest, "Go home to Anathoth. You deserve to die, but I won't kill you today, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David and because you shared all the troubles that my father went through."

When Joab learned what had happened, he ran to the LORD's tent and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar, since Joab had supported Adonijah (though he had not supported Absalom).

Somebody informed King Solomon, "Joab just ran to the LORD's tent and now he's standing beside the altar!" But Solomon ordered Jehoiada's son Benaiah, "Go kill him!"

So Benaiah went into the LORD's tent and told Joab, "The king orders you to come out!" "No," Joab said, "I'd rather die here!" So Benaiah went and informed the king, "This is how Joab answered me."

The king replied to him, "Do just what he asked. Kill him and bury him so that you may remove from me and from my father's household the guilt that Joab shed needlessly.

The LORD will repay him for his bloodshed because, without my father David's consent he attacked and murdered two men more righteous and better than he, Ner's son Abner, the commander of Israel's army and Jether's son Amasa, commander of Judah's army.

May their blood be repaid to Joab and to his descendants forever, and may there be peace shown from the LORD forever to David, to his descendants, to his household, and to his throne."

The king appointed Jehoiada's son Benaiah in charge of the army to replace Joab and also appointed Zadok the priest to replace Abiathar.

The king sent for Shimei and told him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and live there, but don't go anywhere from there.

If you ever leave and cross the Kidron Brook, you can be sure that you'll die. You'll be responsible for your own death."

Shimei replied to the king, "What your majesty has decreed is acceptable to me. I'll do what you've said." So Shimei lived in Jerusalem for quite some time.

But three years later, two of Shimei's servants escaped to Maacah's son Achish, the king of Gath.

Somebody told Shimei, "Look! Your servants went to Gath!" So Shimei got up, saddled a donkey, and traveled to Gath to find his servants. He found them and brought them back from Gath.

Later, Solomon found out that Shimei had left Jerusalem, gone to Gath, and had returned,

so the king sent for Shimei and asked him, "Didn't I make a promise to the LORD and warn you, "The day you leave and go anywhere else, you can be sure you'll die'? And you told me, "What your majesty has decreed is acceptable to me.'

So why haven't you kept the oath you made to the LORD, and why didn't you obey my personal order to you?"

The king also reminded Shimei, "You know all the evil things that you admit you did to my father David. Therefore the LORD is going to repay you for all of your evil.

So the king gave orders to Jehoiada's son Benaiah to go out, attack Shimei, and kill him. That is how the kingdom was established under Solomon's control.

Later, Solomon intermarried with the family of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt by taking his daughter and bringing her to the City of David to live until he had completed building his own palace, the LORD's Temple, and the wall around Jerusalem.

The people were sacrificing at various high places because the Temple had not yet been built and dedicated to the LORD.

Solomon loved the LORD, and lived according to the statutes that his father David obeyed, except that he sacrificed and burned offerings at the high places.

The king used to go to Gibeon to sacrifice, since there was a famous high place there, where Solomon once offered 1,000 burnt offerings on that altar.

The LORD appeared to Solomon one night in a dream and told him, "Ask me for whatever you want and I'll give it to you."

"You have demonstrated abundant gracious love to your servant David, my father, as he lived in your presence truthfully, righteously, and uprightly in his heart. In addition, you have kept on showing this abundant gracious love by giving him a son to sit on his throne today. Now, LORD my God, you have set me as king to replace my father David, but I'm still young. I don't have any leadership skills.

Your servant lives in the midst of your people that you have chosen, a great people that is too numerous to be counted.

So give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, so I can discern between good and evil. Otherwise, how will I be able to govern this great people of yours?"

"Because you asked for this, and you didn't ask for a long life for yourself, and you didn't ask for the lives of your enemies, but instead you've asked for discernment so you can understand how to govern, look how I'm going to do precisely what you asked. I'm giving you a wise and discerning mind, so that there will have been no one like you before you and no one will arise after you like you.

I'm also giving you what you haven't requested: both riches and honor, so that no other king will be comparable to you during your lifetime.

Then Solomon woke up and realized that he had dreamed a dream. Then he went back to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the LORD's covenant, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and threw a party for all of his servants.

Right about then, two prostitutes approached the king and requested an audience with him.

One woman said, "Your majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house.

Three days later, this woman also gave birth. We lived alone there. There was nobody else with us in the house. It was just the two of us.

She got up in the middle of the night, took my son from me while your servant was asleep, and laid him to her breast after laying her dead son next to me.

The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the light of day, he turned out not to be my son whom I had borne!"

"Somebody get me a sword." So they brought a sword to the king.

"Divide the living child in two!" he ordered. "Give half to the one and half to the other."

The woman whose child was still alive cried out to the king, because her heart yearned for her son. "Oh no, your majesty!" she said. "Give her the living child. Please don't kill him." But the other woman said, "Cut him in half! That way, he'll belong to neither one of us."

The king announced his decision: "Give the living child to the first woman. Don't kill him. She is his mother."

When this decision that the king had handed down was announced, everybody in Israel was amazed at the king, because they all saw that God's wisdom was in him, enabling him to administer justice.

Solomon also appointed twelve governors over all of Israel, each of whom were responsible for providing one month's food provisions to the king and to his administration during each year.

Ahilud's son Baana served Taanach, Megiddo, and all of Beth-shean near Zarethan below Jezreel, including from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah as far as the other side of Jokmeam;

Ben-geber in Ramoth-gilead, including the towns that belonged to Manasseh's descendant Jair that are in Gilead;

Ahimaaz served in Naphtali (he was married to Solomon's daughter Basemath);

Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the territory of the Philistines and south to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon throughout his lifetime.

He ruled over everything west of the Euphrates River from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all of the kings west of the Euphrates River, and he enjoyed peace on all sides around him.

Judah and Israel lived safely, and everyone enjoyed their own vine and fig tree from Dan to Beer-sheba through all of Solomon's life.

Solomon owned 40,000 stalls for the horses that drove his chariots, and he employed 12,000 men to drive them.

They also provided barley and straw for the horses and camels to their respective locations, each consistent with their responsibilities.

He was wiser than anyone of his day wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, and wiser than Mahol's sons Calcol and Darda.

He described trees everything from cedars that grow in Lebanon to hyssop that grows on a garden wall. He described animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

People came from everywhere to hear Solomon's advice. Every king on the earth heard of his wisdom.

King Hiram of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon when he learned that Solomon had been anointed king to replace his father, because Hiram had been David's lifelong friend.

Solomon sent this message to Hiram:

"You know that my father David was unable to build a temple dedicated to the LORD his God because he was busy fighting wars all around him until the LORD defeated his enemies.

So now I'm planning to build a temple dedicated to the LORD my God, just as the LORD told my father when he said, "Your son, whom I will set on your throne to replace you, will build the Temple dedicated to me.'

Now therefore please order that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My servants will work with your servants, and I will pay your servants whatever wages you set, because you know there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians do."

As soon as Hiram received the message from Solomon, he became so ecstatic that he exclaimed, "Blessed be the LORD today, who has given David a wise son to rule this great people!" Then he sent this message to Solomon:

"I have read the letter that you sent me. I'll do what you've asked about the cedar and cypress timber.