Wisdom and knowledge are given to you; and I will give you wealth and honour, such as no king has had before you or ever will have after you.

And the king made silver and gold as common as stones in Jerusalem, and cedar like the sycamore-trees of the lowland in number.

Now it was Solomon's purpose to put up a house for the name of the Lord and a house for himself as king.

And Solomon had seventy thousand men numbered for transport, and eighty thousand for cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers.

And Solomon sent to Huram, king of Tyre, saying, As you did for my father David, sending him cedar-trees for the building of his house,

And I will give as food to your servants, the wood-cutters, twenty thousand measures of grain, and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand measures of wine and twenty thousand measures of oil.

And Huram said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, maker of heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, full of wisdom and good sense, to be the builder of a house for the Lord and a house for himself as king.

And now I am sending you a wise and expert man, Huram who is as my father,

So now let my lord send to his servants the grain and the oil and the wine as my lord has said;

And we will have wood cut from Lebanon, as much as you have need of, and will send it to you on flat boats by sea to Joppa, and from there you may take it up to Jerusalem.

Then Solomon took the number of all the men from strange lands who were living in Israel, as his father David had done; there were a hundred and fifty-three thousand, six hundred.

Seventy thousand he put to the work of transport, eighty thousand to cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers to put the people to work.

And the covered way in front of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and a hundred and twenty cubits high, all plated inside with the best gold.

And under it was a design of flowers all round it, ten to a cubit, circling the water-vessel in two lines; they were made from liquid metal at the same time as the water-vessel.

It was as thick as a man's open hand, and the edge of it was curved like the edge of a cup, like a lily flower; it would take three thousand baths.

And he made ten washing-vessels, putting five on the right side and five on the left; such things as were used in making the burned offering were washed in them; but the great water-vessel was to be used by the priests for washing themselves.

And he made the ten gold supports for the lights, as directions had been given for them, and he put them in the Temple, five on the right side and five on the left.

All the pots and the spades and the meat-hooks and their vessels, which Huram, who was as his father, made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

And the Lord has kept his word; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made the house for the name of the Lord the God of Israel.

So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place before me on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; if only your children give attention to their ways, walking in my law, as you have done before me.

So that they may give you worship, walking in your ways, as long as they are living in the land which you gave to our fathers.

And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel but comes from a far country because of the glory of your name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm; when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house:

Then give ear from heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and may see that this house which I have made is truly named by your name.

So Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, for the people had come together from the way into Hamath and from as far as the river of Egypt.

Now the Lord came to Solomon in a vision by night, and said to him, I have given ear to your prayer, and have taken this place for myself as a house where offerings are to be made.

And as for you, if you will go on your way before me as David your father did, doing whatever I have given you orders to do and keeping my laws and my decisions:

Then I will make strong the seat of your kingdom, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be ruler in Israel.

As for all the rest of the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel:

Their men who were still living in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not put an end to, these Solomon put to forced work, as is done to this day;

But Solomon did not make use of the children of Israel as servants for his work; they were men of war, his chiefs and his captains, and captains of his war-carriages and his horsemen.

And he gave the divisions of the priests their places for their work, as ordered by his father David, and to the Levites he gave their work of praise and waiting on the priests, to do what was needed day by day; and he gave the door-keepers their places in turn at every door; for so David, the man of God, had given orders.

And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels: never had such spices been seen as the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.

And he was ruler over all the kings from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the limit of Egypt.

The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number.

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come to me again on the third day.

And Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth, the son of David and of Abihail, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse;

Now when Rehoboam's position as king had been made certain, and he was strong, he gave up the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.

And he took the walled towns of Judah, and came as far as Jerusalem.

And after driving out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, have you not made priests for yourselves as the people of other lands do? so that anyone who comes to make himself priest by offering an ox or seven sheep, may be a priest of those who are no gods.

But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not been turned away from him; we have priests who do the work of the Lord, even the sons of Aaron and the Levites in their places;

So Abijah went to rest with his fathers, and they put him into the earth in the town of David, and Asa his son became king in his place; in his time the land was quiet for ten years.

And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God;

And Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men of Judah armed with body-covers and spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand of Benjamin armed with body-covers and bows; all these were men of war.

And Asa went out against him, and they put their forces in position in the valley north of Mareshah.

And Asa made prayer to the Lord his God and said, Lord, you only are able to give help against the strong to him who has no strength; come to our help, O Lord our God, for our hope is in you, and in your name we have come out against this great army. O Lord, you are our God; let not man's power be greater than yours.

So the Lord sent fear on the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; and the Ethiopians went in flight.

And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

And he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.

And Asa, hearing these words of Azariah, the son of Oded the prophet, took heart and put away all the disgusting things out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the towns which he had taken from the hill-country of Ephraim; and he made new again the altar of the Lord in front of the covered way of the Lord's house.

So they came together at Jerusalem in the third month, in the fifteenth year of the rule of Asa.

And Asa would not let Maacah, his mother, be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had her image cut down and broken up and burned by the stream Kidron.

But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; but still the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his life.

And there was no more war till the thirty-fifth year of the rule of Asa.

In the thirty-sixth year of the rule of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, went up against Judah, building Ramah so that no one was able to go out or in to Asa, king of Judah.

Then Asa took silver and gold out of the stores of the Lord's house and of the king's store-house, and sent to Ben-hadad, king of Aram, at Damascus, saying,

Let there be an agreement between me and you as there was between my father and your father: see, I have sent you silver and gold; go and put an end to your agreement with Baasha, king of Israel, so that he may give up attacking me.

And Ben-hadad did as King Asa said, and sent the captains of his armies against the towns of Israel, attacking Ijon and Dan and Abel-maim, and all the store-towns of Naphtali.

Then King Asa, with all Judah, took away the stones and wood with which Baasha was building Ramah, and he made use of them for building Geba and Mizpah.

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said to him, Because you have put your faith in the king of Aram and not in the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has got away out of your hands.

Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, burning with wrath against him because of this thing. And at the same time Asa was cruel to some of the people.

Now the acts of Asa, first and last, are recorded in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

In the thirty-ninth year of his rule, Asa had a very bad disease of the feet; but he did not go to the Lord for help in his disease, but to medical men.

So Asa went to rest with his fathers, and death came to him in the forty-first year of his rule.

He put forces in all the walled towns of Judah, and responsible chiefs in the land of Judah and in the towns of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

But turning to the God of his father and keeping his laws, and not doing as Israel did.

His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord; and he went so far as to take away the high places and the wood pillars out of Judah.

In the third year of his rule he sent Benhail and Obadiah and Zechariah and Nethanel and Micaiah, his captains, as teachers into the towns of Judah;

For Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead? And he said, I am as you are, and my people as your people; we will be with you in the war.

Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were seated on their seats of authority, dressed in their robes, by the doorway into Samaria; and all the prophets were acting as prophets before them.

See now, how as our reward they have come to send us out of your land which you have given us as our heritage.

He went in the ways of his father Asa, not turning away, but doing right in the eyes of the Lord.

Now as for the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, they are recorded in the words of Jehu, the son of Hanani, which were put in the book of the kings of Israel.

And their father gave them much silver and gold and things of great value, as well as walled towns in Judah; but the kingdom he gave to Jehoram, because he was the oldest.

Now when Jehoram had taken his place over his father's kingdom, and had made his position safe, he put all his brothers to death with the sword, as well as some of the princes of Israel.

He went in the ways of the kings of Israel, and did as the family of Ahab did, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife; and he did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

And a letter came to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, The Lord, the God of your father David, says, Because you have not kept to the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or the ways of Asa, king of Judah,

But have gone in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the people of Jerusalem go after false gods, as the family of Ahab did: and because you have put to death your father's sons, your brothers, who were better than yourself:

And they came up against Judah, forcing a way into it, and took away all the goods in the king's house, as well as his sons and his wives; so that he had no son but only Jehoahaz, the youngest.

And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the family of Ahab did; for after the death of his father they were his guides to his destruction.

And all the people made an agreement with the king in the house of God. And he said to them, Truly, the king's son will be king, as the Lord has said about the sons of David.

So the Levites and all Judah did as Jehoiada the priest had given them orders: every one took with him his men, those who were to come in and those who were to go out on the Sabbath; for Jehoiada had not sent away the divisions.

And Jehoiada put the work and the care of the house of the Lord into the hands of the priests and the Levites, who had been grouped in divisions by David to make burned offerings to the Lord, as it is recorded in the law of Moses, with joy and song as David had said.

And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord as long as Jehoiada the priest was living.

And when the work was done, they took the rest of the money to the king and Jehoiada, and it was used for making the vessels for the house of the Lord, all the vessels needed for the offerings, the spoons and the vessels of gold and silver. And as long as Jehoiada was living, the regular burned offerings were offered in the house of the Lord.

And he took all the gold and silver and all the vessels which were in the house of the Lord, under the care of Obed-edom, and all the wealth from the king's house, as well as those whose lives would be the price of broken faith, and went back to Samaria.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done.

He gave himself to searching after God in the days of Zechariah, who made men wise in the fear of God; and as long as he was true to the Lord, God made things go well for him.

The Ammonites gave offerings to Uzziah: and news of him went out as far as the limit of Egypt; for he became very great in power.

In addition, Uzziah had an army of fighting-men who went out to war in bands, as they had been listed by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the authority of Hananiah, one of the king's captains.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Uzziah had done; but he did not go into the Temple of the Lord. And the people still went on in their evil ways.

So the Lord his God gave him up into the hands of the king of Aram; and they overcame him, and took away a great number of his people as prisoners to Damascus. Then he was given into the hands of the king of Israel, who sent great destruction on him.

And the children of Israel took away as prisoners from their brothers, two hundred thousand, women and sons and daughters, and a great store of their goods, and took them to Samaria.

And now your purpose is to keep the children of Judah and Jerusalem as men-servants and women-servants under your yoke: but are there no sins against the Lord your God to be seen among yourselves?

And the Philistines, forcing their way into the towns of the lowlands and the south of Judah, had taken Beth-shemesh and Aijalon and Gederoth and Soco, with their daughter-towns, as well as Timnah and Gimzo and their daughter-towns, and were living there.

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done.

And so the wrath of the Lord has come on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has given them up to be a cause of fear and wonder and shame, as your eyes have seen.

And they got their brothers together and made themselves holy, and went in, as the king had said by the word of the Lord, to make the house of the Lord clean.

Then they went in to King Hezekiah and said, We have made all the house of the Lord clean, as well as the altar of burned offerings with all its vessels, and the table for the holy bread, with all its vessels.

And they took with them seven oxen and seven male sheep and seven lambs and seven he-goats as a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the holy house and for Judah. And he gave orders to the sons of Aaron, the priests, that these were to be offered on the altar of the Lord.

Then he put the Levites in their places in the house of the Lord, with brass and corded instruments of music as ordered by David and Gad, the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for the order was the Lord's, given by his prophets.