And Solomon, the son of David, made himself strong in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and made him very great.

Then Solomon, and all the men of Israel with him, went to the high place at Gibeon, because the Tent of meeting of God, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the waste land, was there.

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.

In that night God came to Solomon in a vision, and said to him, Say what I am to give you.

And Solomon said to God, Great was your mercy to David my father, and you have made me king in his place.

Now, O Lord God, let your word to David my father come true; for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in number.

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:

And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, which he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

And Solomon's horses came out of Egypt; the king's traders got them from Kue at a price.

A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty: they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

See! I am building a house for the name of the Lord my God, to be made holy to him, where perfumes of sweet spices will be burned before him, and the holy bread will be placed at all times, and burned offerings will be offered morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts of the Lord our God. This is a law for ever to Israel.

And the house which I am building is to be great, for our God is greater than all gods.

So now send me an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron? in purple and red and blue, and in the cutting of all sorts of ornament, to be with the expert workmen who are here in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom my father David got together.

To get trees for me in great numbers, for the house which I am building is to be great and a wonder.

And Huram said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, maker of heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, full of wisdom and good sense, to be the builder of a house for the Lord and a house for himself as king.

And we will have wood cut from Lebanon, as much as you have need of, and will send it to you on flat boats by sea to Joppa, and from there you may take it up to Jerusalem.

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 Huram made all the pots and the spades and the basins. So he came to the end of all the work he did for King Solomon in the house of God:

And Solomon made all the vessels used in the house of God, the gold altar and the tables on which the holy bread was placed,

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 when the players on horns, and those who made melody in song, with one voice were sounding the praise and glory of the Lord; with loud voices and with wind instruments, and brass and corded instruments of music, praising the Lord and saying, He is good; his mercy is unchanging for ever: then the house was full of the cloud of the glory of the Lord,

So that the priests were not able to keep their places to do their work because of the cloud; for the house of God was full of the glory of the Lord.

And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to my father David, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying,

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.

And the Lord has kept his word; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made the house for the name of the Lord the God of Israel.

And he said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts;

So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place before me on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; if only your children give attention to their ways, walking in my law, as you have done before me.

So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, make your word come true which you said to your servant David.

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:

Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant and to his prayer for grace, O Lord my God, and give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant makes before you;

Then give ear from heaven, so that the sin of your servants and the sin of your people Israel may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.

Now, O my God, may your eyes be open and your ears awake to the prayers made in this place.

Up! now, O Lord God, come back to your resting-place, you and the ark of your strength: let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints be glad in what is good.

O Lord God, let him whom you have taken for yourself never be given up by you: keep in mind your mercies to David your servant.

And all the children of Israel were looking on when the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord was on the house; and they went down on their knees, with their faces to the earth, worshipping and praising the Lord, and saying, He is good; for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

King Solomon made an offering of twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people kept the feast of the opening of the house of God.

And on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David and to Solomon and to Israel his people.

And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord, the God of their fathers, who took them out of the land of Egypt, and took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why he has sent all this evil on them.

And he gave the divisions of the priests their places for their work, as ordered by his father David, and to the Levites he gave their work of praise and waiting on the priests, to do what was needed day by day; and he gave the door-keepers their places in turn at every door; for so David, the man of God, had given orders.

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 in addition to what he got from traders of different sorts, all the kings of Arabia and the rulers of the country gave gold and silver to Solomon.

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.

They got horses for Solomon from Egypt and from every land.

And they said to him, If you are kind to this people, pleasing them and saying good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever.

So the king did not give ear to the people; for this came about by the purpose of God, so that the Lord might give effect to his word which he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.

Then Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

And Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, and got together the men of Judah and Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam.

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

And after them, from all the tribes of Israel, all those whose hearts were fixed and true to the Lord, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to make offerings to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

And when he made himself low, the wrath of the Lord was turned back from him, and complete destruction did not come on him, for there was still some good in Judah.

Is it not clear to you that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the rule over Israel to David and to his sons for ever, by an agreement made with salt?

And certain foolish and good-for-nothing men were joined with him, and made themselves strong against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when he was young and untested and not able to keep them back.

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.

And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.

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 the children of Israel went in flight before Judah, and God gave them up into their hands.

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.

And Jeroboam did not get back his power again in the life-time of Abijah; and the Lord sent death on him.

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 did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God;

For he took away the altars of strange gods and the high places, and had the upright stones broken and the wood pillars cut down;

And he made Judah go after the Lord, the God of their fathers, and keep his laws and his orders.

And he took away the high places and the sun-images from all the towns of Judah; and the kingdom was quiet under his rule.

He made walled towns in Judah, for the land was quiet and there were no wars in those years, because the Lord had given him rest.

He said to Judah, Let us make these towns, building walls round them with towers and doors and locks. The land is still ours, because we have been true to the Lord our God; we have been true to him and he has given us rest on every side. So they went on building and all went well for them.

And Asa made prayer to the Lord his God and said, Lord, you only are able to give help against the strong to him who has no strength; come to our help, O Lord our God, for our hope is in you, and in your name we have come out against this great army. O Lord, you are our God; let not man's power be greater than yours.

And Asa and the people who were with him went after them as far as Gerar; and so great was the destruction among the Ethiopians that they were not able to get their army together again, for they were broken before the Lord and before his army; and they took away a great amount of their goods.

And the spirit of God came on Azariah, the son of Oded;

Now for a long time Israel has been without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without the law;

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

And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

And he got together all Judah and Benjamin and those of Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who were living with them; for numbers of them came to him out of Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

And they made an agreement to be true to the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and all their soul;

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.

And Asa would not let Maacah, his mother, be queen, because she had made a disgusting image for Asherah; and Asa had her image cut down and broken up and burned by the stream Kidron.

He took into the house of God all the things which his father had made holy and those which he himself had made holy, silver and gold and vessels.

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.

But turning to the God of his father and keeping his laws, and not doing as Israel did.

And after some years he went down to Samaria to see Ahab. And Ahab made a feast for him and the people who were with him, putting to death great numbers of sheep and oxen; and he got Jehoshaphat to go with him to Ramoth-gilead.

Then Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Let us now get directions from the Lord.

So the king of Israel got together all the prophets, four hundred men, and said to them, Am I to go to Ramoth-gilead to make war or not? And they said, Go up: for God will give it into the hands of the king.

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.

Now the servant who had gone to get Micaiah said to him, See now, all the prophets with one voice are saying good things to the king; so let your words be like theirs, and say good things.

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?

Then a spirit came forward and took his place before the Lord and said, I will get him to do it by a trick. And the Lord said to him, How?

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 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 Jehoshaphat was living in Jerusalem; and he went out again among the people, from Beer-sheba to the hill-country of Ephraim, guiding them back to the Lord, the God of their fathers.

So now let the fear of the Lord be in you; do your work with care; for in the Lord our God there is no evil, or respect for high position, or taking of payment to do wrong.

And he gave them their orders, saying, You are to do your work in the fear of the Lord, in good faith and with a true heart.

And said, O Lord, the God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? are you not ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? and in your hands are power and strength so that no one is able to keep his place against you.

Did you not, O Lord our God, after driving out the people of this land before your people Israel, give it to the seed of Abraham, your friend, for ever?

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.

And the Levites, the children of the Kohathites and the Korahites, got to their feet and gave praise to the Lord, the God of Israel, with a loud voice.

And early in the morning they got up and went out to the waste land of Tekoa: and when they were going out, Jehoshaphat took his station and said to them, Give ear to me, O Judah and you people of Jerusalem: have faith in the Lord your God and you will be safe; have faith in his prophets and all will go well for you.

And the fear of God came on all the kingdoms of the lands, when they had news of how the Lord made war on those who came against Israel.

So the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for the Lord gave him rest on every side.