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,

So Solomon went to Jerusalem from the high place that was in Gibeon in front of the tent of meeting, and he reigned over Israel.

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

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.

And the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark so that the cherubim formed a cover above the ark and its poles.

“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.

But I have chosen Jerusalem
so that My name will be there,
and I have chosen David
to be over My people Israel.”

so that Your eyes watch over this temple
day and night,
toward the place where You said
You would put Your name;
and so that You may hear the prayer
Your servant prays toward this place.

When they sin against You—
for there is no one who does not sin—
and You are angry with them
and hand them over to the enemy,
and their captors deport them
to a distant or nearby country,

These were King Solomon’s deputies: 250 who ruled over the people.

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.

So Hiram sent ships to him by his servants along with crews of experienced seamen. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir, took from there 17 tons of gold, and delivered it to King Solomon.

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.”

In addition, Hiram’s servants and Solomon’s servants who brought gold from Ophir also brought algum wood and precious stones.

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

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

Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel for 40 years.

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

In the eighteenth year of Israel’s King Jeroboam, Abijah became king over Judah

Don’t you know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?

Didn’t you banish the priests of Yahweh, the descendants of Aaron and the Levites, and make your own priests like the peoples of other lands do? Whoever comes to ordain himself with a young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not gods.

They offer a burnt offering and fragrant incense to the Lord every morning and every evening, and they set the rows of the bread of the Presence on the ceremonially clean table. They light the lamps of the gold lampstand every evening. We are carrying out the requirements of Yahweh our God, while you have abandoned Him.

So the Israelites fled before Judah, and God handed them over to them.

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

All Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn it with all their mind. They had sought Him with all their heart, and He was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.

Were not the Cushites and Libyans a vast army with many chariots and horsemen? When you depended on Yahweh, He handed them over to you.

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.

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.”

And all the prophets were prophesying the same, saying, “March up to Ramoth-gilead and succeed, for the Lord will hand it over to the king.”

So he went to the king, and the king asked him, “Micaiah, should we go to Ramoth-gilead for war, or should I refrain?”

Micaiah said, “March up and succeed, for they will be handed over to you.”

But Micaiah said, “If you ever return safely, the Lord has not spoken through me.” Then he said, “Listen, all you people!”

“Note that Amariah, the chief priest, is over you in all matters related to the Lord, and Zebadiah son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah, in all matters related to the king, and the Levites are officers in your presence. Be strong; may the Lord be with those who do what is good.”

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.

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.

Jehoshaphat became king over Judah. He was 35 years old when he became king and reigned 25 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.

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.

Then Jehu looked for Ahaziah, and Jehu’s soldiers captured him (he was hiding in Samaria). So they brought Ahaziah to Jehu, and they killed him. The soldiers buried him, for they said, “He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat who sought the Lord with all his heart.” So no one from the house of Ahaziah had the strength to rule the kingdom.

While Athaliah ruled over the land, he was hiding with them in God’s temple six years.

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.

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.

But Amaziah would not listen, for this turn of events was from God in order to hand them over to their enemies because they went after the gods of Edom.

They took their stand against King Uzziah and said, “Uzziah, you have no right to offer incense to the Lord—only the consecrated priests, the descendants of Aaron, have the right to offer incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have acted unfaithfully! You will not receive honor from the Lord God.”

Uzziah, with a firepan in his hand to offer incense, was enraged. But when he became enraged with the priests, in the presence of the priests in the Lord’s temple beside the altar of incense, a skin disease broke out on his forehead.

So King Uzziah was diseased to the time of his death. He lived in quarantine with a serious skin disease and was excluded from access to the Lord’s temple, while his son Jotham was over the king’s household governing the people of the land.

So Jotham strengthened himself because he did not waver in obeying the Lord his God.

So the Lord his God handed Ahaz over to the king of Aram. He attacked him and took many captives to Damascus.

Ahaz was also handed over to the king of Israel, who struck him with great force:

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.

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.

They also closed the doors of the portico, extinguished the lamps, did not burn incense, and did not offer burnt offerings in the holy place of the God of Israel.

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.

Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over how God had prepared the people, for it had come about suddenly.

whoever sets his whole heart on seeking God, Yahweh, the God of his ancestors, even though not according to the purification rules of the sanctuary.”

Azariah, the chief priest of the household of Zadok, answered him, “Since they began bringing the offering to the Lord’s temple, we eat and are satisfied and there is plenty left over because the Lord has blessed His people; this abundance is what is left over.”

Kore son of Imnah the Levite, the keeper of the East Gate, was over the freewill offerings to God to distribute the contribution to the Lord and the consecrated things.

He set military commanders over the people and gathered the people in the square of the city gate. Then he encouraged them, saying,

Isn’t Hezekiah misleading you to give you over to death by famine and thirst when he says, “Yahweh our God will deliver us from the power of the king of Assyria”?

Then in his presence the altars of the Baals were torn down, and he chopped down the incense altars that were above them. He shattered the Asherah poles, the carved images, and the cast images, crushed them to dust, and scattered them over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

They were also over the porters and were supervising all those doing the work task by task. Some of the Levites were secretaries, officers, and gatekeepers.

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.

No Passover had been observed like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel ever observed a Passover like the one that Josiah observed with the priests, the Levites, all Judah, the Israelites who were present in Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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.

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.

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.

This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build Him a temple at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you of His people may go up, and may the Lord his God be with him.