Solomon and the whole assembly with him went to the high place that was in Gibeon because God’s tent of meeting, which the Lord’s servant Moses had made in the wilderness, was there.

but he put the bronze altar, which Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, in front of the Lord’s tabernacle. Solomon and the assembly inquired of Him there.

And Solomon said to God: “You have shown great and faithful love to my father David, and You have made me king in his place.

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.

God said to Solomon, “Since this was in your heart, and you have not requested riches, wealth, or glory, or for the life of those who hate you, and you have not even requested long life, but you have requested for yourself wisdom and knowledge that you may judge My people over whom I have made you king,

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

Hiram also said:

May the Lord God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth, be praised! He gave King David a wise son with insight and understanding, who will build a temple for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

Solomon made 70,000 of them porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to make the people work.

Then he made the most holy place; its length corresponded to the width of the temple, 30 feet, and its width was 30 feet. He overlaid it with 45,000 pounds of fine gold.

He made two cherubim of sculptured work, for the most holy place, and he overlaid them with gold.

He made the veil of blue, purple, and crimson yarn and fine linen, and he wove cherubim into it.

In front of the temple he made two pillars, each 27 feet high. The capital on top of each was 7½ feet high.

He had made chainwork in the inner sanctuary and also put it on top of the pillars. He made 100 pomegranates and fastened them into the chainwork.

He made a bronze altar 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 15 feet high.

Then he made the cast metal reservoir, 15 feet from brim to brim, perfectly round. It was 7½ feet high and 45 feet in circumference.

He made 10 basins for washing and he put five on the right and five on the left. The parts of the burnt offering were rinsed in them, but the reservoir was used by the priests for washing.

He made the 10 gold lampstands according to their specifications and put them in the sanctuary, five on the right and five on the left.

He made 10 tables and placed them in the sanctuary, five on the right and five on the left. He also made 100 gold bowls.

He made the courtyard of the priests and the large court, and doors for the court. He overlaid the doors with bronze.

Then Huram made the pots, the shovels, and the bowls.

So Huram finished doing the work that he was doing for King Solomon in God’s temple:

He also made the water carts and the basins on the water carts.

the pots, the shovels, the forks, and all their utensils—Huram-abi made them for King Solomon for the Lord’s temple. All these were made of polished bronze.

Solomon made all these utensils in such great abundance that the weight of the bronze was not determined.

Solomon also made all the equipment in God’s temple: the gold altar; the tables on which to put the bread of the Presence;

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

I have put the ark there,
where Yahweh’s covenant is
that He made with the Israelites.

For Solomon had made a bronze platform 7½ feet long, 7½ feet wide, and 4½ feet high and put it in the court. He stood on it, knelt down in front of the entire congregation of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven.

whatever prayer or petition
anyone from your people Israel might have—
each man knowing his own affliction and suffering,
and spreading out his hands toward this temple—

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.

Since the bronze altar that Solomon had made could not accommodate the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat of the fellowship offerings, Solomon first consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s temple and then offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings there.

At that time Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the Lord’s altar he had made in front of the portico.

The king made the algum wood into walkways for the Lord’s temple and for the king’s palace and into lyres and harps for the singers. Never before had anything like them been seen in the land of Judah.

King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold; 15 pounds of hammered gold went into each shield.

He made 300 small shields of hammered gold; about eight pounds of gold went into each shield. The king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.

The king also made a large ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold.

Twelve lions were standing there on the six steps, one at each end. Nothing like it had ever been made in any other kingdom.

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

“Your father made our yoke difficult. Therefore, lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

Then the young men who had grown up with him told him, “This is what you should say to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you, make it lighter on us!’ This is what you should say to them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins.

and spoke to them according to the young men’s advice, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it; my father disciplined you with whips, but I, with barbed whips.”

The king did not listen to the people because the turn of events came from God, in order that the Lord might carry out His word that He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

Jeroboam appointed his own priests for the high places, the goat-demons, and the golden calves he had made.

So King Shishak of Egypt went to war against Jerusalem. He seized the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and the treasuries of the royal palace. He took everything. He took the gold shields that Solomon had made.

King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place and committed them into the care of the captains of the royal escorts who guarded the entrance to the king’s palace.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

He was buried in his own tomb that he had made for himself in the city of David. They laid him out in a coffin that was full of spices and various mixtures of prepared ointments; then they made a great fire in his honor.

Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance, and he made an alliance with Ahab through marriage.

Then Zedekiah son of Chenaanah made iron horns and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You will gore the Arameans with these until they are finished off.’”

He said:

Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, are You not the God who is in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in Your hand, and no one can stand against You.

After this, Judah’s King Jehoshaphat made an alliance with Israel’s King Ahaziah, who was guilty of wrongdoing.

Jehoshaphat formed an alliance with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships in Ezion-geber.

Then Eliezer son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Because you formed an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord has broken up what you have made.” So the ships were wrecked and were not able to go to Tarshish.

but because of the covenant the Lord had made with David, He was unwilling to destroy the house of David since the Lord had promised to give a lamp to David and to his sons forever.

Then the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son, king in his place, because the troops that had come with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram became king of Judah.

Ahaziah’s downfall came from God when he went to Joram. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab.

They made a circuit throughout Judah. They gathered the Levites from all the cities of Judah and the heads of the families of Israel, and they came to Jerusalem.

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.

They brought out the king’s son, put the crown on him, gave him the testimony, and made him king. Jehoiada and his sons anointed him and cried, “Long live the king!”

Then Jehoiada made a covenant between himself, the king, and the people that they would be the Lord’s people.

At the king’s command a chest was made and placed outside the gate of the Lord’s temple.

When they finished, they presented the rest of the money to the king and Jehoiada, who made articles for the Lord’s temple with it—articles for ministry and for making burnt offerings, and ladles and articles of gold and silver. They regularly offered burnt offerings in the Lord’s temple throughout Jehoiada’s life.

While he was still speaking to him, the king asked, “Have we made you the king’s counselor? Stop, why should you lose your life?”

So the prophet stopped, but he said, “I know that God intends to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my advice.”

King Amaziah of Judah took counsel and sent word to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, “Come, let us meet face to face.”

All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was 16 years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

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

He made skillfully designed devices in Jerusalem to shoot arrows and catapult large stones for use on the towers and on the corners. So his fame spread even to distant places, for he was marvelously helped until he became strong.

for he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made cast images of the Baals.

A prophet of the Lord named Oded was there. He went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Look, the Lord God of your ancestors handed them over to you because of His wrath against Judah, but you slaughtered them in a rage that has reached heaven.

Then Ahaz gathered up the utensils of God’s temple, cut them into pieces, shut the doors of the Lord’s temple, and made himself altars on every street corner in Jerusalem.

He made high places in every city of Judah to offer incense to other gods, and he provoked the Lord, the God of his ancestors.

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.

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.

Then Hezekiah strengthened his position by rebuilding the entire broken-down wall and heightening the towers and the other outside wall. He repaired the supporting terraces of the city of David, and made an abundance of weapons and shields.

Then they called out loudly in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem, who were on the wall, to frighten and discourage them in order that he might capture the city.

They spoke against the God of Jerusalem like they had spoken against the gods of the peoples of the earth, which were made by human hands.

Hezekiah had abundant riches and glory, and he made himself treasuries for silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and every desirable item.

He made warehouses for the harvest of grain, new wine, and oil, and stalls for all kinds of cattle, and pens for flocks.

He made cities for himself, and he acquired herds of sheep and cattle in abundance, for God gave him abundant possessions.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down and reestablished the altars for the Baals. He made Asherah poles, and he worshiped the whole heavenly host and served them.

Manasseh set up a carved image of the idol he had made, in God’s temple, about which God had said to David and his son Solomon, “I will establish My name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of 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.

Then the common people executed all those who conspired against King Amon and made his son Josiah king in his place.

Then the king stood at his post and made a covenant in the Lord’s presence to follow the Lord and to keep His commands, His decrees, and His statutes with all his heart and with all his soul in order to carry out the words of the covenant written in this book.

They removed the burnt offerings so that they might be given to the divisions of the ancestral houses of the lay people to offer to the Lord, according to what is written in the book of Moses; they did the same with the bulls.

Afterward, they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, since the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were busy offering up burnt offerings and fat until night. So the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were at their stations according to the command of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer. Also, the gatekeepers were at each gate. None of them left their tasks because their Levite brothers had made preparations for them.

Then the common people took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.

Then Neco king of Egypt made Jehoahaz’s brother Eliakim king over Judah and Jerusalem and changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took his brother Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt.

In the spring Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and brought him to Babylon along with the valuable utensils of the Lord’s temple. Then he made Jehoiachin’s brother Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear allegiance by God. He became obstinate and hardened his heart against returning to Yahweh, the God of Israel.