Solomon and the entire assembly went to the worship center in Gibeon, for the tent where they met God was located there, which Moses the Lord's servant had made in the wilderness.

But the bronze altar made by Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, was in front of the Lord's tabernacle. Solomon and the entire assembly prayed to him there.)

Solomon replied to God, "You demonstrated great loyalty to my father David and have made me king in his place.

Now, Lord God, may your promise to my father David be realized, for you have made me king over a great nation as numerous as the dust of the earth.

God said to Solomon, "Because you desire this, and did not ask for riches, wealth, and honor, or for vengeance on your enemies, and because you did not ask for long life, but requested wisdom and discernment so you can make judicial decisions for my people over whom I have made you king,

The king made silver and gold as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones; cedar was as plentiful as sycamore fig trees are in the lowlands.

King Huram of Tyre sent this letter to Solomon: "Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you their king."

Huram also said, "Worthy of praise is the Lord God of Israel, who made the sky and the earth! He has given David a wise son who has discernment and insight and will build a temple for the Lord, as well as a royal palace for himself.

He paneled the main hall with boards made from evergreen trees and plated it with fine gold, decorated with palm trees and chains.

He made the most holy place; its length was 30 feet, corresponding to the width of the temple, and its width 30 feet. He plated it with 600 talents of fine gold.

In the most holy place he made two images of cherubim and plated them with gold.

He made the curtain out of violet, purple, crimson, and white fabrics, and embroidered on it decorative cherubim.

In front of the temple he made two pillars which had a combined length of 52? feet, with each having a plated capital seven and one-half feet high.

He made ornamental chains and put them on top of the pillars. He also made one hundred pomegranate-shaped ornaments and arranged them within the chains.

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

He also made the big bronze basin called "The Sea." It measured 15 feet from rim to rim, was circular in shape, and stood seven and one-half feet high. Its circumference was 45 feet.

He made ten washing basins; he put five on the south side and five on the north side. In them they rinsed the items used for burnt sacrifices; the priests washed in "The Sea."

He made ten gold lampstands according to specifications and put them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left.

He made ten tables and set them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left. He also made one hundred gold bowls.

He made the courtyard of the priests and the large enclosure and its doors; he plated their doors with bronze.

Huram Abi made the pots, shovels, and bowls. He finished all the work on God's temple he had been assigned by King Solomon.

He made the two pillars, the two bowl-shaped tops of the pillars, the latticework for the bowl-shaped tops of the two pillars,

and the pots, shovels, and meat forks. All the items King Solomon assigned Huram Abi to make for the Lord's temple were made from polished bronze.

Solomon made so many of these items they did not weigh the bronze.

Solomon also made these items for God's temple: the gold altar, the tables on which the Bread of the Presence was kept,

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. (It was there that the Lord made an agreement with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.)

The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have taken my father David's place and have occupied the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised. I have built this temple for the honor of the Lord God of Israel

and set up in it a place for the ark containing the covenant the Lord made with the Israelites."

Solomon had made a bronze platform and had placed it in the middle of the enclosure. It was seven and one-half feet long, seven and one-half feet wide, and four and one-half feet high. He stood on it and then got down on his knees in front of the entire assembly of Israel. He spread out his hands toward the sky,

Now, O Lord God of Israel, keep the promise you made to your servant, my father David, when you said, 'You will never fail to have a successor ruling before me on the throne of Israel, provided that your descendants watch their step and obey my law as you have done.'

Now, O Lord God of Israel, may the promise you made to your servant David be realized.

O Lord God, do not reject your chosen ones! Remember the faithful promises you made to your servant David!"

The priests stood in their assigned spots, along with the Levites who had the musical instruments used for praising the Lord. (These were the ones King David made for giving thanks to the Lord and which were used by David when he offered praise, saying, "Certainly his loyal love endures.") Opposite the Levites, the priests were blowing the trumpets, while all Israel stood there.

Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard that is in front of the Lord's temple. He offered burnt sacrifices, grain offerings, and the fat from the peace offerings there, because the bronze altar that Solomon had made was too small to hold all these offerings.

the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him: "I have answered your prayer and chosen this place to be my temple where sacrifices are to be made.

He made upper Beth Horon and lower Beth Horon fortified cities with walls and barred gates,

May the Lord your God be praised because he favored you by placing you on his throne as the one ruling on his behalf! Because of your God's love for Israel and his lasting commitment to them, he made you king over them so you could make just and right decisions."

With the timber the king made steps for the Lord's temple and royal palace as well as stringed instruments for the musicians. No one had seen anything like them in the land of Judah prior to that.)

King Solomon made two hundred large shields of hammered gold; 600 measures of hammered gold were used for each shield.

He also made three hundred small shields of hammered gold; 300 measures of gold were used for each of those shields. The king placed them in the Palace of the Lebanon Forest.

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

All of King Solomon's cups were made of gold, and all the household items in the Palace of the Lebanon Forest were made of pure gold. There were no silver items, for silver was not considered very valuable in Solomon's time.

The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones; cedar was as plentiful as sycamore fig trees are in the lowlands.

"Your father made us work too hard! Now if you lighten the demands he made and don't make us work as hard, we will serve you."

The young advisers with whom Rehoboam had grown up said to him, "Say this to these people who have said to you, 'Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden' -- say this to them: 'I am a lot harsher than my father!

The king refused to listen to the people, because God was instigating this turn of events so that he might bring to pass the prophetic announcement he had made through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

Jeroboam appointed his own priests to serve at the worship centers and to lead in the worship of the goat idols and calf idols he had made.

King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the Lord's temple and of the royal palace; he took everything, including the gold shields that Solomon had made.

King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned them to the officers of the royal guard who protected the entrance to the royal palace.

Now you are declaring that you will resist the Lord's rule through the Davidic dynasty. You have a huge army, and bring with you the gold calves that Jeroboam made for you as gods.

He said to the people of Judah: "Let's build these cities and fortify them with walls, towers, and barred gates. The land remains ours because we have followed the Lord our God and he has made us secure on all sides." So they built the cities and prospered.

He met Asa and told him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you when you are loyal to him. If you seek him, he will respond to you, but if you reject him, he will reject you.

All Judah was happy about the oath, because they made the vow with their whole heart. They willingly sought the Lord and he responded to them. He made them secure on every side.

King Asa also removed Maacah his grandmother from her position as queen mother because she had made a loathsome Asherah pole. Asa cut down her Asherah pole and crushed and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

He brought the holy items that his father and he had made into God's temple, including the silver, gold, and other articles.

"I want to make a treaty with you, like the one our fathers made. See, I have sent you silver and gold. Break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel, so he will retreat from my land."

He was buried in the tomb he had carved out in the City of David. They laid him to rest on a bier covered with spices and assorted mixtures of ointments. They made a huge bonfire to honor him.

The Lord made his kingdom secure; all Judah brought tribute to Jehoshaphat, and he became very wealthy and greatly respected.

Jehoshaphat was very wealthy and greatly respected. He made an alliance by marriage with Ahab,

Zedekiah son of Kenaanah made iron horns and said, "This is what the Lord says, 'With these you will gore Syria until they are destroyed!'"

He met with the people and appointed musicians to play before the Lord and praise his majestic splendor. As they marched ahead of the warriors they said: "Give thanks to the Lord, for his loyal love endures."

Jehoshaphat's kingdom enjoyed peace; his God made him secure on every side.

Later King Jehoshaphat of Judah made an alliance with King Ahaziah of Israel, who did evil.

Eliezer son of Dodavahu from Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, "Because you made an alliance with Ahaziah, the Lord will shatter what you have made." The ships were wrecked and unable to go to sea.

But the Lord was unwilling to destroy David's dynasty because of the promise he had made to give David a perpetual dynasty.

The residents of Jerusalem made his youngest son Ahaziah king in his place, for the raiding party that invaded the city with the Arabs had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram became king of Judah.

God brought about Ahaziah's downfall through his visit to Joram. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had commissioned to wipe out Ahab's family.

In the seventh year Jehoiada made a bold move. He made a pact with the officers of the units of hundreds: Azariah son of Jehoram, Ishmael son of Jehochanan, Azariah son of Obed, Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zikri.

and the whole assembly made a covenant with the king in the temple of God. Jehoiada said to them, "The king's son will rule, just as the Lord promised David's descendants.

So the king summoned Jehoiada the chief priest, and said to him, "Why have you not made the Levites collect from Judah and Jerusalem the tax authorized by Moses the Lord's servant and by the assembly of Israel at the tent containing the tablets of the law?"

The king ordered a chest to be made and placed outside the gate of the Lord's temple.

They worked hard and made the repairs. They followed the measurements specified for God's temple and restored it.

When Amaziah returned from defeating the Edomites, he brought back the gods of the people of Seir and made them his personal gods. He bowed down before them and offered them sacrifices.

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

Uzziah had an army of skilled warriors trained for battle. They were organized by divisions according to the muster rolls made by Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the officer under the authority of Hananiah, a royal official.

In Jerusalem he made war machines carefully designed to shoot arrows and large stones from the towers and corners of the walls. He became very famous, for he received tremendous support and became powerful.

He followed in the footsteps of the kings of Israel; he also made images of the Baals.

Oded, a prophet of the Lord, was there. He went to meet the army as they arrived in Samaria and said to them: "Look, because the Lord God of your ancestors was angry with Judah he handed them over to you. You have killed them so mercilessly that God has taken notice.

The Lord was angry at Judah and Jerusalem and made them an appalling object of horror at which people hiss out their scorn, as you can see with your own eyes.

Now, don't be stubborn like your fathers! Submit to the Lord and come to his sanctuary which he has permanently consecrated. Serve the Lord your God so that he might relent from his raging anger.

The Israelites who were in Jerusalem observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great joy. The Levites and priests were praising the Lord every day with all their might.

The king contributed some of what he owned for burnt sacrifices, including the morning and evening burnt sacrifices and the burnt sacrifices made on Sabbaths, new moon festivals, and at other appointed times prescribed in the law of the Lord.

He ordered the people living in Jerusalem to contribute the portion prescribed for the priests and Levites so they might be obedient to the law of the Lord.

Kore son of Imnah, a Levite and the guard on the east side, was in charge of the voluntary offerings made to God and disbursed the contributions made to the Lord and the consecrated items.

They made disbursements to all the males three years old and up who were listed in the genealogical records -- to all who would enter the Lord's temple to serve on a daily basis and fulfill their duties as assigned to their divisions.

They made disbursements to the priests listed in the genealogical records by their families, and to the Levites twenty years old and up, according to their duties as assigned to their divisions,

Hezekiah energetically rebuilt every broken wall. He erected towers and an outer wall, and fortified the terrace of the City of David. He made many weapons and shields.

Afterward King Sennacherib of Assyria, while attacking Lachish with all his military might, sent his messengers to Jerusalem. The message was for King Hezekiah of Judah and all the people of Judah who were in Jerusalem. It read:

They talked about the God of Jerusalem as if he were one of the man-made gods of the nations of the earth.

The Lord delivered Hezekiah and the residents of Jerusalem from the power of King Sennacherib of Assyria and from all the other nations. He made them secure on every side.

Hezekiah was very wealthy and greatly respected. He made storehouses for his silver, gold, precious stones, spices, and all his other valuable possessions.

He made storerooms for the harvest of grain, wine, and olive oil, and stalls for all his various kinds of livestock and his flocks.

He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky and worshiped them.

He put an idolatrous image he had made in God's temple, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, "This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home.

After this Manasseh built up the outer wall of the City of David on the west side of the Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate and all around the terrace; he made it much higher. He placed army officers in all the fortified cities in Judah.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, just like his father Manasseh had done. He offered sacrifices to all the idols his father Manasseh had made, and worshiped them.

The people of the land executed all who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

This will happen because they have abandoned me and offered sacrifices to other gods, angering me with all the idols they have made. My anger will ignite against this place and will not be extinguished!'"

He made all who were in Jerusalem and Benjamin agree to it. The residents of Jerusalem acted in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors.

Preparations were made, and the priests stood at their posts and the Levites in their divisions as prescribed by the king.