But the ark of God had been moved by David from Kiriath-jearim to the place which he had made ready for it, for he had put up a tent for it at Jerusalem.

And God said to Solomon, Because this was in your heart, and you did not make request for money, property, or honour, or for the destruction of your haters, or for long life; but you have made request for wisdom and knowledge for yourself, so that you may be the judge of my people over whom I have made you king:

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

But who may have strength enough to make a house for him, seeing that the heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be his resting-place? who am I then to make a house for him? But I am building it only for the burning of perfume before him.

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 Solomon put the base of the house of God in position; by the older measure it was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.

And he made chains, like neck ornaments, and put them on the tops of the pillars, and a hundred apples on the chains.

He put up the pillars in front of the Temple, one on the right side and one on the left, naming the one on the right Jachin and that on the left Boaz.

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.

He made ten tables, and put them in the Temple, five on the right side and five on the left. And he made a hundred gold basins.

He put the great water-vessel on the right side of the house to the east, facing south.

So all the work which Solomon did for the house of the Lord was complete. And Solomon took the holy things which David his father had given, the silver and the gold and all the vessels, and put them in the store-houses of the house of God.

And the priests took the ark of the Lord's agreement and put it in its place, in the inner room of the house, in the most holy place, under the wings of the winged ones.

The rods were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place before the inmost room; but they were not seen from outside; and there they are to this day.

Nothing was in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt.

Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men,

But now I have made selection of Jerusalem, that my name might be there, and of David, to be over my people Israel.

Now it was in the heart of my father David to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name:

But you yourself will not be the builder of the house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

And there I have put the ark, in which is the agreement of the Lord, which he made with the people of Israel.

(For Solomon had made a brass stage, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had put it in the middle of the open space; on this he took his place and went down on his knees before all the meeting of Israel, stretching out his hands to heaven.)

But is it truly possible that God may be housed with men on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place: how much less this house which I have made:

That your eyes may be open to this house day and night, to this place of which you have said that you would put your name there; to give ear to the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place.

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:

If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayers to you turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have put up for your name:

But if you are turned away from me, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods, giving them worship:

Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the house of the Lord and a house for himself,

And he put up the buildings of Tadmor in the waste land, and of all the store-towns in Hamath;

And of Baalath, and all the store-towns which Solomon had, and the towns where he kept his war-carriages and his horse men, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

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.

Then Solomon made burned offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had put up in front of the covered way,

And all the work of Solomon was complete, from the day when he put the base of the Lord's house in position, till Solomon had come to the end of building the Lord's house.

Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to Jerusalem to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions; and with her came a very great train, and camels weighted down with spices, and great stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself; and truly, word was not given me of half your great wisdom; you are much greater than they said.

Praise be to the Lord your God whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of his kingdom to be king for the Lord your God: because, in his love for Israel, it was the purpose of your God to make them strong for ever, he made you king over them, to be their judge in righteousness.

And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, using three hundred shekels of gold for every cover, and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon.

And all the kings of the earth came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put into his heart.

And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.

But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, but went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him.

And he said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?

And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us, but will you make it less; say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.

But gave them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.

But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.

But the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

And he made the walled towns strong, and he put captains in them and stores of food, oil, and wine.

And in every town he put stores of body-covers and spears, and made them very strong. And Judah and Benjamin were his.

And the Lord, seeing that they had made themselves low, said to Shemaiah, They have made themselves low: I will not send destruction on them, but in a short time I will give them salvation, and will not let loose my wrath on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.

But still they will become his servants, so that they may see how different my yoke is from the yoke of the kingdoms of the lands.

So King Rehoboam made himself strong in Jerusalem and was ruling there. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king, and he was ruling for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the town which the Lord had made his out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there; and his mother's name was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.

And Rehoboam went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David; and Abijah his son became king in his place.

And Abijah went out to the fight with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand of his best men; and Jeroboam put his forces in line against him, eight hundred thousand of his best men of war.

But Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, took up arms against his lord.

And now it is your purpose to put yourselves against the authority which the Lord has put into the hands of the sons of David, and you are a very great number, and you have with you the gold oxen which Jeroboam made to be your 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;

By whom burned offerings and perfumes are sent up in smoke before the Lord every morning and every evening; and they put out the holy bread on its table and the gold support for the lights with its lights burning every evening; for we keep the orders given to us by the Lord our God, but you have gone away from him.

But Jeroboam had put some of his men to make a surprise attack on them from the back, so some were facing Judah and others were stationed secretly at their back.

And the men of Judah gave a loud cry; and at their cry, God put fear into Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

And Abijah and his people put them to death with great destruction: five hundred thousand of the best of Israel were put to the sword.

So at that time the children of Israel were overcome, and the children of Judah got the better of them, because they put their faith in the Lord, the God of their fathers.

But Abijah became great, and had fourteen wives, and became the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

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

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.

But when in their trouble they were turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, searching after him, he let their search be rewarded.

In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your work will be rewarded.

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.

And that anyone, small or great, man or woman, who was not true to the Lord, the God of Israel, would be put to death.

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.

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.

Then Baasha, hearing of it, put a stop to the building of Ramah, and let his work come to an end.

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.

Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a very great army, with war-carriages and horsemen more than might be numbered? but because your faith was in the Lord, he gave them up into 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.

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.

And they put him into the resting-place which he had made for himself in the town of David, in a bed full of sweet perfumes of all sorts of spices, made by the perfumer's art, and they made a great burning for him.

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.

But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no other prophet of the Lord here from whom we may get directions?

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is still one man by whom we may get directions from the Lord, but I have no love for him, because he has never been a prophet of good to me, but only of evil: he is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made himself iron horns and said, The Lord says, Pushing back the Aramaeans with these, you will put an end to them completely.

And the king said to him, Have I not, again and again, put you on your oath to say nothing to me but what is true in the name of the Lord?

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not say that he would not be a prophet of good to me, but of evil?

And now, see, the Lord has put a spirit of deceit in the mouth of these prophets of yours; and the Lord has said evil against you.

And say, By the king's order this man is to be put in prison, and given prison food till I come back in peace.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will make a change in my clothing, so that I do not seem to be the king, and will go into the fight; but do you put on your robes. So the king of Israel made a change in his dress, and they went to the fight.

Now the king of Aram had given orders to the captains of his war-carriages, saying, Make no attack on small or great, but only on the king of Israel.

So when the captains of the war-carriages saw Jehoshaphat, they said, It is the king of Israel. And turning about, they came round him, but Jehoshaphat gave a cry, and the Lord came to his help, and God sent them away from him.

But the fight became more violent while the day went on; and the king of Israel was supported in his war-carriage facing the Aramaeans till the evening; and by sundown he was dead.

But still there is some good in you, for you have put away the wood pillars out of the land, and have given your heart to the worship of God.

And he put judges through all the land, in every walled town of Judah,

And said to the judges, Take care what you do, for you are judging not for man but for the Lord, and he is with you in the decisions you give.

O our God, will you not be their judge? for our strength is not equal to this great army which is coming against us; and we are at a loss what to do: but our eyes are on you.

And he said, Give ear, O Judah, and you people of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat: the Lord says to you, Have no fear and do not be troubled on account of this great army; for the fight is not yours but God's.