That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him: “Ask. What should I give you?”

Lord God, let Your promise to my father David now come true. For You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

The king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as abundant as sycamore in the Judean foothills.

so he assigned 70,000 men as porters, 80,000 men as stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 as supervisors over them.

But who is able to build a temple for Him, since even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Him? Who am I then that I should build a temple for Him except as a place to burn incense before Him?

Then King Hiram of Tyre wrote a letter and sent it to Solomon:

Because the Lord loves His people, He set you over them as king.

Now, let my lord send the wheat, barley, oil, and wine to his servants as promised.

We will cut logs from Lebanon, as many as you need, and bring them to you as rafts by sea to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.

So Yahweh has fulfilled what He promised.
I have taken the place of my father David
and I sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised.
I have built the temple for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

You have kept what You promised
to Your servant, my father David.
You spoke directly to him,
and You fulfilled Your promise by Your power,
as it is today.

Therefore, Lord God of Israel,
keep what You promised
to Your servant, my father David:
“You will never fail to have a man
to sit before Me on the throne of Israel,
if only your sons guard their way to walk in My Law
as you have walked before Me.”

may You hear in heaven in Your dwelling place,
and do all the foreigner asks You.
Then all the peoples of the earth will know Your name,
to fear You as Your people Israel do
and know that this temple I have built
is called by Your name.

The priests and the Levites were standing at their stations. The Levites had the musical instruments of the Lord, which King David had made to praise the Lord—“for His faithful love endures forever”—when he offered praise with them. Across from the Levites, the priests were blowing trumpets, and all the people were standing.

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him:

I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a temple of sacrifice.

As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

I will establish your royal throne, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man ruling in Israel.

As for this temple, which was exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?

As for all the peoples who remained of the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not from Israel—

May the Lord your God be praised! He delighted in you and put you on His throne as king for the Lord your God. Because Your God loved Israel enough to establish them forever, He has set you over them as king to carry out justice and righteousness.”

Then she gave the king four and a half tons of gold, a great quantity of spices, and precious stones. There never were such spices as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were gold, and all the utensils of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver, since it was considered as nothing in Solomon’s time,

Each of them would bring his own gift—items of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, and horses and mules—as an annual tribute.

He ruled over all the kings from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt.

The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as abundant as sycamore in the Judean foothills.

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, just as the king had ordered, saying, “Return to me on the third day.”

But as for the Israelites living in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.

for the Levites left their pasturelands and their possessions and went to Judah and Jerusalem, because Jeroboam and his sons refused to let them serve as priests of Yahweh.

Rehoboam appointed Abijah son of Maacah as chief, leader among his brothers, intending to make him king.

He captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem.

“And now you are saying you can assert yourselves against the Lord’s kingdom, which is in the hand of one of David’s sons. You are a vast number and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods.

“But as for us, Yahweh is our God. We have not abandoned Him; the priests ministering to the Lord are descendants of Aaron, and the Levites serve at their tasks.

Abijah rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of David. His son Asa became king in his place. During his reign the land experienced peace for 10 years.

Asa did what was good and right in the sight of the Lord his God.

Because the land experienced peace, Asa built fortified cities in Judah. No one made war with him in those days because the Lord gave him rest.

Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah bearing large shields and spears, and 280,000 from Benjamin bearing regular shields and drawing the bow. All these were brave warriors.

Then Zerah the Cushite came against them with an army of one million men and 300 chariots. They came as far as Mareshah.

So Asa marched out against him and lined up in battle formation in the Valley of Zephathah at Mareshah.

Then Asa cried out to the Lord his God: “Lord, there is no one besides You to help the mighty and those without strength. Help us, Lord our God, for we depend on You, and in Your name we have come against this large army. Yahweh, You are our God. Do not let a mere mortal hinder You.”

So the Lord routed the Cushites before Asa and before Judah, and the Cushites fled.

Then Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar. The Cushites fell until they had no survivors, for they were crushed before Yahweh and His army. So the people of Judah carried off a great supply of loot.

So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Asa and all Judah and Benjamin, hear me. The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you abandon Him, He will abandon you.

But as for you, be strong; don’t be discouraged, for your work has a reward.”

When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage and removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim. He renovated the altar of the Lord that was in front of the portico of the Lord’s temple.

Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, as well as those from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who had settled among them, for they had defected to him from Israel in great numbers when they saw that Yahweh his God was with him.

They were gathered in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign.

King Asa also removed Maacah, his grandmother, from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah. Asa chopped down her obscene image, then crushed it and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

The high places were not taken away from Israel; nevertheless, Asa was wholehearted his entire life.

There was no war until the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa, Israel’s King Baasha went to war against Judah. He built Ramah in order to deny access to anyone—going or coming—to Judah’s King Asa.

So Asa brought out the silver and gold from the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and the royal palace and sent it to Aram’s King Ben-hadad, who lived in Damascus, saying,

Ben-hadad listened to King Asa and sent the commanders of his armies to the cities of Israel. They attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the storage cities of Naphtali.

Then King Asa brought all Judah, and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timbers Baasha had built it with. Then he built Geba and Mizpah with them.

At that time, Hanani the seer came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, “Because you depended on the king of Aram and have not depended on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand.

Asa was angry with the seer and put him in prison because of his anger over this. And Asa mistreated some of the people at that time.

Note that the events of Asa’s reign, from beginning to end, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa developed a disease in his feet, and his disease became increasingly severe. Yet even in his disease he didn’t seek the Lord but only the physicians.

Asa died in the forty-first year of his reign and rested with his fathers.

He stationed troops in every fortified city of Judah and set garrisons in the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

Some of the Philistines also brought gifts and silver as tribute to Jehoshaphat, and the Arabs brought him flocks: 7,700 rams and 7,700 male goats.

for Israel’s King Ahab asked Judah’s King Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead?”

He replied to him, “I am as you are, my people as your people; we will be with you in the battle.”

But Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “First, please ask what the Lord’s will is.”

But Jehoshaphat asked, “Isn’t there a prophet of Yahweh here anymore? Let’s ask him.”

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man who can ask Yahweh, but I hate him because he never prophesies good about me, but only disaster. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”

“The king shouldn’t say that,” Jehoshaphat replied.

But Micaiah said, “As the Lord lives, I will say whatever my God says.”

Look how they repay us by coming to drive us out of Your possession that You gave us as an inheritance.

In the morning they got up early and went out to the wilderness of Tekoa. As they were about to go out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in Yahweh your God, and you will be established; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

He walked in the way of Asa his father; he did not turn away from it but did what was right in the Lord’s sight.

When Jehoram had established himself over his father’s kingdom, he strengthened his position by killing with the sword all his brothers as well as some of the princes of Israel.

He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for Ahab’s daughter was his wife. He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight,

Then a letter came to Jehoram from Elijah the prophet, saying:

This is what Yahweh, the God of your ancestor David says: “Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or in the ways of Asa king of Judah

Then the whole assembly made a covenant with the king in God’s temple. Jehoiada said to them, “Here is the king’s son! He must reign, just as the Lord promised concerning David’s sons.

As she looked, there was the king standing by his pillar at the entrance. The commanders and the trumpeters were by the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets while the singers with musical instruments were leading the praise. Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed, “Treason, treason!”

Then Jehoiada put the oversight of the Lord’s temple into the hands of the Levitical priests, whom David had appointed over the Lord’s temple, to offer burnt offerings to the Lord as it is written in the law of Moses, with rejoicing and song ordained by David.

So he gathered the priests and Levites and said, “Go out to the cities of Judah and collect money from all Israel to repair the temple of your God as needed year by year, and do it quickly.”

However, the Levites did not hurry.

As soon as the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed his servants who had murdered his father the king.

However, he did not put their children to death, because—as it is written in the Law, in the book of Moses, where the Lord commanded—“Fathers must not die because of children, and children must not die because of fathers, but each one will die for his own sin.”

As for the men of the division that Amaziah sent back so they would not go with him into battle, they raided the cities of Judah from Samaria to Beth-horon, struck down 3,000 of their people, and took a great deal of plunder.

After Amaziah came from the attack on the Edomites, he brought the gods of the Seirites and set them up as his gods. He worshiped before them and burned incense to them.

King Jehoash of Israel sent word to King Amaziah of Judah, saying, “The thistle that was in Lebanon sent a message to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, ‘Give your daughter to my son as a wife.’ Then a wild animal that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight as his father Amaziah had done.

The Ammonites gave Uzziah tribute money, and his fame spread as far as the entrance of Egypt, for God made him very powerful.

Uzziah had an army equipped for combat that went out to war by division according to their assignments, as recorded by Jeiel the court secretary and Maaseiah the officer under the authority of Hananiah, one of the king’s commanders.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight as his father Uzziah had done. In addition, he didn’t enter the Lord’s sanctuary, but the people still behaved corruptly.

As for the rest of the events of Jotham’s reign, along with all his wars and his ways, note that they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

As for the rest of his deeds and all his ways, from beginning to end, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestor David had done.

Therefore, the wrath of the Lord was on Judah and Jerusalem, and He made them an object of terror, horror, and mockery, as you see with your own eyes.

They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. Then he told the descendants of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord.

so they affirmed the proposal and spread the message throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, to come to observe the Passover of Yahweh, the God of Israel in Jerusalem, for they hadn’t observed it often, as prescribed.

Don’t be like your fathers and your brothers who were unfaithful to Yahweh, the God of their ancestors so that He made them an object of horror as you yourselves see.

The couriers traveled from city to city in the land of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but the inhabitants laughed at them and mocked them.

When all this was completed, all Israel who had attended went out to the cities of Judah and broke up the sacred pillars, chopped down the Asherah poles, and tore down the high places and altars throughout Judah and Benjamin, as well as in Ephraim and Manasseh, to the last one. Then all the Israelites returned to their cities, each to his own possession.

The king contributed from his own possessions for the regular morning and evening burnt offerings, the burnt offerings of the Sabbaths, of the New Moons, and of the appointed feasts, as written in the law of the Lord.

As for the Israelites and Judahites who lived in the cities of Judah, they also brought a tenth of the cattle and sheep, and a tenth of the dedicated things that were consecrated to the Lord their God. They gathered them into large piles.

to those registered by genealogy—with all their infants, wives, sons, and daughters—of the whole assembly (for they had faithfully consecrated themselves as holy);

As for the rest of the events of Hezekiah’s reign and his deeds of faithful love, note that they are written in the Visions of the Prophet Isaiah son of Amoz, and in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images that his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

He did the same in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali and on their surrounding mountain shrines.

The men were doing the work with integrity. Their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, Levites from the Merarites, and Zechariah and Meshullam from the Kohathites as supervisors. The Levites were all skilled with musical instruments.

Say this to the king of Judah who sent you to ask Yahweh, ‘This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel says: As for the words that you heard,