So his servants said to him: “Let us search for a young virgin for my lord the king. She is to attend the king and be his caregiver. She is to lie by your side so that my lord the king will get warm.”

but he did not invite Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, the warriors, or his brother Solomon.

Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it?

Now please come and let me advise you. Save your life and the life of your son Solomon.

Go, approach King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, did you not swear to your servant: Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne? So why has Adonijah become king?’

At that moment, while you are still there speaking with the king, I’ll come in after you and confirm your words.”

She replied, “My lord, you swore to your servant by the Lord your God, ‘Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne.’

He has lavishly sacrificed oxen, fattened cattle, and sheep. He invited all the king’s sons, Abiathar the priest, and Joab the commander of the army, but he did not invite your servant Solomon.

Now, my lord the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you to tell them who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him.

But he did not invite me—me, your servant—or Zadok the priest or Benaiah son of Jehoiada or your servant Solomon.

I’m certain my lord the king would not have let this happen without letting your servant know who will sit on my lord the king’s throne after him.”

just as I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel: Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne in my place, that is exactly what I will do this very day.”

There, Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet are to anoint him as king over Israel. You are to blow the ram’s horn and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’

You are to come up after him, and he is to come in and sit on my throne. He is the one who is to become king in my place; he is the one I have commanded to be ruler over Israel and Judah.”

Adonijah and all the invited guests who were with him heard the noise as they finished eating. Joab heard the sound of the ram’s horn and said, “Why is the town in such an uproar?”

He was still speaking when Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest, suddenly arrived. Adonijah said, “Come in, for you are an excellent man, and you must be bringing good news.”

“Unfortunately not,” Jonathan answered him. “Our lord King David has made Solomon king.

“The king’s servants have also gone to congratulate our lord King David, saying, ‘May your God make the name of Solomon more well known than your name, and may He make his throne greater than your throne.’ Then the king bowed in worship on his bed.

So King Solomon sent for him, and they took him down from the altar. He came and paid homage to King Solomon, and Solomon said to him, “Go to your home.”

and keep your obligation to the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to keep His statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees. This is written in the law of Moses, so that you will have success in everything you do and wherever you turn,

and so that the Lord will carry out His promise that He made to me: ‘If your sons are careful to walk faithfully before Me with their whole mind and heart, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

“You also know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me and what he did to the two commanders of Israel’s army, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether. He murdered them in a time of peace to avenge blood shed in war. He spilled that blood on his own waistband and on the sandals of his feet.

Act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray head descend to Sheol in peace.

“Show loyalty to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite and let them be among those who eat at your table because they supported me when I fled from your brother Absalom.

So don’t let him go unpunished, for you are a wise man. You know how to deal with him to bring his gray head down to Sheol with blood.”

So she said, “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to your brother Adonijah as a wife.”

King Solomon answered his mother, “Why are you requesting Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Since he is my elder brother, you might as well ask the kingship for him, for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab son of Zeruiah.”

The king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to your fields in Anathoth. Even though you deserve to die, I will not put you to death today, since you carried the ark of the Lord God in the presence of my father David and you suffered through all that my father suffered.”

On the day you do leave and cross the Kidron Valley, know for sure that you will certainly die. Your blood will be on your own head.”

Shimei said to the king, “The sentence is fair; your servant will do as my lord the king has spoken.” And Shimei lived in Jerusalem for a long time.

But then, at the end of three years, two of Shimei’s slaves ran away to Achish son of Maacah, king of Gath. Shimei was informed, “Look, your slaves are in Gath.”

The king also said, “You yourself know all the evil that you did to my father David. Therefore, the Lord has brought back your evil on your head,

However, the people were sacrificing on the high places, because until that time a temple for the Lord’s name had not been built.

And Solomon replied, “You have shown great and faithful love to Your servant, my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness, righteousness, and integrity. You have continued this great and faithful love for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today.

“Lord my God, You have now made Your servant king in my father David’s place. Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership.

Your servant is among Your people You have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted.

So give Your servant an obedient heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”

So God said to him, “Because you have requested this and did not ask for long life or riches for yourself, or the death of your enemies, but you asked discernment for yourself to understand justice,

In addition, I will give you what you did not ask for: both riches and honor, so that no man in any kingdom will be your equal during your entire life.

If you walk in My ways and keep My statutes and commands just as your father David did, I will give you a long life.”

Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.

On the third day after I gave birth, she also had a baby and we were alone. No one else was with us in the house; just the two of us were there.

She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was asleep. She laid him at her breast, and she put her dead son in my arms.

“No,” the other woman said. “My son is the living one; your son is the dead one.”

The first woman said, “No, your son is the dead one; my son is the living one.” So they argued before the king.

The king replied, “This woman says, ‘This is my son who is alive, and your son is dead,’ but that woman says, ‘No, your son is dead, and my son is alive.’”

The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”

But the other one said, “He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two!”

and these were his officials:

Azariah son of Zadok, priest;

Solomon had 12 deputies for all Israel. They provided food for the king and his household; each one made provision for one month out of the year.

These were their names:

Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;

Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (he had the villages of Jair son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, 60 great cities with walls and bronze bars);

Geber son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan.

There was one deputy in the land of Judah.

Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; they were eating, drinking, and rejoicing.

Solomon’s provisions for one day were 150 bushels of fine flour and 300 bushels of meal,

The Lord my God has now given me rest all around; there is no enemy or crisis.

So I plan to build a temple for the name of Yahweh my God, according to what the Lord promised my father David: ‘I will put your son on your throne in your place, and he will build the temple for My name.’

“Therefore, command that cedars from Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants’ wages according to whatever you say, for you know that not a man among us knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

Then Hiram sent a reply to Solomon, saying, “I have heard your message; I will do everything you want regarding the cedar and cypress timber.

and Solomon provided Hiram with 100,000 bushels of wheat as food for his household and 110,000 gallons of oil from crushed olives. Solomon did this for Hiram year after year.

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

Solomon began to build the temple for the Lord in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in the second month, in the month of Ziv.

The temple’s construction used finished stones cut at the quarry so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

“As for this temple you are building—if you walk in My statutes, observe My ordinances, and keep all My commands by walking in them, I will fulfill My promise to you, which I made to your father David.

Then he put the cherubim inside the inner temple. Since their wings were spread out, the first one’s wing touched one wall while the second cherub’s wing touched the other wall, and in the middle of the temple their wings were touching wing to wing.

For the entrance of the inner sanctuary, he made olive wood doors. The pillars of the doorposts were five-sided.

The two doors were made of olive wood. He carved cherubim, palm trees, and flower blossoms on them and overlaid them with gold, hammering gold over the cherubim and palm trees.

The two doors were made of cypress wood; the first door had two folding sides, and the second door had two folding panels.

The foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid in Solomon’s fourth year in the month of Ziv.

In his eleventh year in the eighth month, in the month of Bul, the temple was completed in every detail and according to every specification. So he built it in seven years.

There were three rows of window frames, facing each other in three tiers.

He made the Hall of the Throne where he would judge—the Hall of Judgment. It was paneled with cedar from the floor to the rafters.

Solomon’s own palace where he would live, in the other courtyard behind the hall, was of similar construction. And he made a house like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, his wife.

All of these buildings were of costly stones, cut to size and sawed with saws on the inner and outer surfaces, from foundation to coping and from the outside to the great courtyard.

Above were also costly stones, cut to size, as well as cedar wood.

Around the great courtyard, as well as the inner courtyard of the Lord’s temple and the portico of the temple, were three rows of dressed stone and a row of trimmed cedar beams.

And the capitals on top of the pillars in the portico were shaped like lilies, six feet high.

The capitals on the two pillars were also immediately above the rounded surface next to the grating, and 200 pomegranates were in rows encircling each capital.

The tops of the pillars were shaped like lilies. Then the work of the pillars was completed.

Ornamental gourds encircled it below the brim, 10 every half yard, completely encircling the reservoir. The gourds were cast in two rows when the reservoir was cast.

It stood on 12 oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The reservoir was on top of them and all their hindquarters were toward the center.

The reservoir was three inches thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup or of a lily blossom. It held 11,000 gallons.

This was the design of the carts: They had frames; the frames were between the cross-pieces,

and on the frames between the cross-pieces were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the cross-pieces there was a pedestal above, and below the lions and oxen were wreaths of hanging work.

Each cart had four bronze wheels with bronze axles. Underneath the four corners of the basin were cast supports, each next to a wreath.

And the water cart’s opening inside the crown on top was 18 inches wide. The opening was round, made as a pedestal 27 inches wide. On it were carvings, but their frames were square, not round.

There were four wheels under the frames, and the wheel axles were part of the water cart; each wheel was 27 inches tall.

The wheels’ design was similar to that of chariot wheels: their axles, rims, spokes, and hubs were all of cast metal.

Four supports were at the four corners of each water cart; each support was one piece with the water cart.

At the top of the cart was a band nine inches high encircling it; also, at the top of the cart, its braces and its frames were one piece with it.

two pillars; bowls for the capitals that were on top of the two pillars; the two gratings for covering both bowls of the capitals that were on top of the pillars;

and the pots, shovels, and sprinkling basins. All the utensils that Hiram made for King Solomon at the Lord’s temple were made of burnished bronze.

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

So all the men of Israel were assembled in the presence of King Solomon in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim, at the festival.

The priests and the Levites brought the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and the holy utensils that were in the tent.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him and were with him in front of the ark, were sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted or numbered, because there were so many.

For the cherubim were spreading their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim covered the ark and its poles from above.

The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen from outside the sanctuary; they are there to this day.

Nothing was in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites when they came out of the land of Egypt.

and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

I have indeed built an exalted temple for You,
a place for Your dwelling forever.

The king turned around and blessed the entire congregation of Israel while they were standing.