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

I have now sent Huram-abi, a skillful man who has understanding.

He is the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan. His father is a man of Tyre. He knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, with purple, blue, crimson yarn, and fine linen. He knows how to do all kinds of engraving and to execute any design that may be given him. I have sent him to be with your craftsmen and the craftsmen of my lord, your father David.

Solomon took a census of all the foreign men in the land of Israel, after the census that his father David had conducted, and the total was 153,600.

So all the men of Israel were assembled in the king’s presence at the festival; this was in the seventh month.

“Since the day I brought My people Israel
out of the land of Egypt,
I have not chosen a city to build a temple in
among any of the tribes of Israel,
so that My name would be there,
and I have not chosen a man
to be ruler over My people Israel.

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.”

But will God indeed live on earth with man?
Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You,
much less this temple I have built.

If a man sins against his neighbor
and is forced to take an oath
and he comes to take an oath
before Your altar in this temple,

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—

may You hear in heaven, Your dwelling place,
and may You forgive and repay the man
according to all his ways, since You know his heart,
for You alone know the human heart,

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

According to the ordinances of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, of the Levites over their responsibilities to offer praise and to minister before the priests following the daily requirement, and of the gatekeepers by their divisions with respect to each gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God.

How happy are your men. How happy are these servants of yours, who always stand in your presence hearing your wisdom.

But he rejected the advice of the elders who had advised him, and he consulted with the young men who had grown up with him, the ones serving him.

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.”

When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered the king:

What portion do we have in David?
We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
Israel, each man to your tent;
David, look after your own house now!

So all Israel went to their tents.

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

Abijah set his army of warriors in order with 400,000 choice men. Jeroboam arranged his mighty army of 800,000 choice men in battle formation against him.

Then worthless and wicked men gathered around him to resist Rehoboam son of Solomon when Rehoboam was young, inexperienced, and unable to assert himself against them.

and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. When the men of Judah raised the battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

Then Abijah and his people struck them with a mighty blow, and 500,000 choice men of Israel were killed.

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

Whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel would be put to death, young or old, man or woman.

and carried out great works in the towns of Judah. He had fighting men, brave warriors, in Jerusalem.

So the king of Israel gathered the prophets, 400 men, and asked them, “Should we go to Ramoth-gilead for war or should I refrain?”

They replied, “March up, and God will hand it over to the king.”

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 a man drew his bow without taking special aim and struck the king of Israel through the joints of his armor. So he said to the charioteer, “Turn around and take me out of the battle, for I am badly wounded!”

Then he said to the judges, “Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the matter of judgment.

Then all the men of Judah and Jerusalem turned back with Jehoshaphat their leader, returning joyfully to Jerusalem, for the Lord enabled them to rejoice over their enemies.

So the commanders of hundreds did everything Jehoiada the priest commanded. They each brought their men—those coming on duty on the Sabbath and those going off duty on the Sabbath—for Jehoiada the priest did not release the divisions.

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.

Whenever the chest was brought by the Levites to the king’s overseers, and when they saw that there was a large amount of money, the king’s secretary and the high priest’s deputy came and emptied the chest, picked it up, and returned it to its place. They did this daily and gathered the money in abundance.

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.

Although the Aramean army came with only a few men, the Lord handed over a vast army to them because the people of Judah had abandoned Yahweh, the God of their ancestors. So they executed judgment on Joash.

Then Amaziah gathered Judah and assembled them according to ancestral house, according to commanders of thousands, and according to commanders of hundreds. He numbered those 20 years old or more for all Judah and Benjamin. He found there to be 300,000 choice men who could serve in the army, bearing spear and shield.

However, a man of God came to him and said, “King, do not let Israel’s army go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel—all the Ephraimites.

Then Amaziah said to the man of God, “What should I do about the 7,500 pounds of silver I gave to Israel’s division?”

The man of God replied, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.”

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.

From the time Amaziah turned from following the Lord, a conspiracy was formed against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. However, men were sent after him to Lachish, and they put him to death there.

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

Pekah son of Remaliah killed 120,000 in Judah in one day—all brave men—because they had abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors.

So some men who were leaders of the Ephraimites—Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai—stood in opposition to those coming from the war.

Then the men who were designated by name took charge of the captives and provided clothes for their naked ones from the plunder. They clothed them, gave them sandals, food and drink, dressed their wounds, and provided donkeys for all the feeble. The Israelites brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, among their brothers. Then they returned to Samaria.

They stood at their prescribed posts, according to the law of Moses, the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood received from the hand of the Levites,

and to the descendants of Aaron, the priests, in the common fields of their cities, in each and every city. There were men who were registered by name to distribute a portion to every male among the priests and to every Levite recorded by genealogy.

So they went to Hilkiah the high priest, and gave him the money brought into God’s temple. The Levites and the doorkeepers had collected money from Manasseh, Ephraim, and from the entire remnant of Israel, and from all Judah, Benjamin, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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.

When they brought out the money that had been deposited in the Lord’s temple, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord written by the hand of Moses.

They have emptied out the money that was found in the Lord’s temple and have put it into the hand of the overseers and the hand of those doing the work.”

She said to them, “This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel says: Say to the man who sent you to Me,

The king went up to the Lord’s temple with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as well as the priests and the Levites—all the people from great to small. He read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the Lord’s temple.

Jeremiah chanted a dirge over Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women still speak of Josiah in their dirges to this very day. They established them as a statute for Israel, and indeed they are written in the Dirges.

So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their choice young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no pity on young men or young women, elderly or aged; He handed them all over to him.