Then when he went back to Ziklag, there came over to him, of the men of Manasseh, Adnah and Jozabad and Jediael and Michael and Jozabad and Elihu and Zillethai, captains of thousands from the armies of Manasseh.

And Jehoiada, chief of the family of Aaron, and with him three thousand, seven hundred men;

And the wrath of the Lord, burning against Uzza, sent destruction on him because he had put his hand on the ark, and death came to him there before God.

So David did not let the ark come back to him to the town of David, but had it turned away and put into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.

And David went for directions to God; and God said to him, You are not to go up after them; but, turning away from them, come face to face with them opposite the spice-trees.

And David's name was honoured in all lands; and the Lord put the fear of him on all nations.

For because you did not take it at the first, the Lord our God sent punishment on us, because we did not get directions from him in the right way.

Asaph the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Uzziel and Shemiramoth and Jehiel and Mattithiah and Eliab and Benaiah and Obed-edom and Jeiel, with corded instruments of music; and Asaph, with brass instruments sounding loudly;

Let your search be for the Lord and for his strength; let your hearts ever be turned to him.

Honour and glory are before him: strength and joy are in his holy place.

Give to the Lord the glory of his name; take with you an offering and come before him; give worship to the Lord in holy robes.

Be in fear before him, all the earth: the world is ordered so that it may not be moved.

I will be to him a father and he will be to me a son; and I will not take my mercy away from him as I took it from him who was before you;

For you, O my God, have let your servant see that you will make him head of a line of kings; and so it has come into your servant's heart to make his prayer to you.

And he overcame Moab, and the Moabites became his servants and gave him offerings.

And David took from him a thousand war-carriages and seven thousand horsemen and twenty thousand footmen: and he had the leg-muscles of all the horses cut, keeping only enough of them for a hundred war-carriages.

Then David put armed forces in Damascus, and the Aramaeans became his servants and gave him offerings. And the Lord made David overcome wherever he went.

He sent his son Hadoram to King David, to give him words of peace and blessing, because he had overcome Hadadezer in the fight, for Hadadezer had been at war with Tou; and he gave him all sorts of vessels of gold and silver and brass.

And David said, I will be a friend to Hanun, the son of Nahash, because his father was a friend to me. So David sent men to him, to give him words of comfort on account of his father. And the servants of David came to Hanun, to the land of the children of Ammon, offering him comfort.

Now when Joab saw that their forces were in position against him in front and at his back, he took all the best men of Israel, and put them in line against the Aramaeans;

Take heart, and let us be strong for our people and for the towns of our God; and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

So Joab and the people who were with him went forward into the fight against the Aramaeans, and they went in flight before him.

And when he put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, put him to death.

So Gad came to David and said to him, The Lord says, Take whichever you will:

Three years when there will not be enough food; or three months of war, when you will go in flight before your haters, being in great danger of the sword; or three days of the sword of the Lord, disease in the land, and the angel of the Lord taking destruction through all the land of Israel. Now give thought to the answer I am to take back to him who sent me.

And Ornan, turning back, saw the angel, and his four sons who were with him went to a secret place. Now Ornan was crushing his grain.

And when David came, Ornan, looking, saw him, and came out from the grain-floor and went down on his face to the earth before him.

And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all.

And David put up an altar there to the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings with prayers to the Lord; and he gave him an answer from heaven, sending fire on the altar of burned offering.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had given him an answer on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made an offering there.

Then he sent for his son Solomon, and gave him orders for the building of a house for the Lord, the God of Israel.

But you will have a son who will be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from wars on every side. His name will be Solomon, and in his time I will give Israel peace and quiet;

He will be the builder of a house for my name; he will be to me a son, and I will be to him a father; and I will make the seat of his rule over Israel certain for ever.

So they were put into their different groups, to take their places in the house of the Lord, in agreement with the rules made by Aaron their father, as the Lord, the God of Israel, had given him orders.

Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Peullethai the eighth; for the blessing of God was on him.

And Hosah, a son of the children of Merari, had sons: Shimri the chief (for though he was not the oldest, his father made him chief);

And the care of the door on the east came out for Shelemiah. Then the name of Zechariah his son, a man wise in discussion, came out, and the door on the north was given to him.

The fourth captain for the fourth month was Asahel, the brother of Joab, and Zebadiah his son after him; and in his division were twenty-four thousand.

And he said to me, Solomon your son will be the builder of my house and the open spaces round it; for I have taken him to be my son, and I will be his father.

And you, Solomon my son, get knowledge of the God of your father, and be his servant with a true heart and with a strong desire, for the Lord is the searcher of all hearts, and has knowledge of all the designs of men's thoughts; if you make search for him, he will be near you; but if you are turned away from him, he will give you up for ever.

And with great joy they made a feast before the Lord that day. And they made Solomon, the son of David, king a second time, putting the holy oil on him to make him holy to the Lord as ruler, and on Zadok as priest.

So Solomon was put on the seat of the Lord as king in place of his father David, and everything went well for him; and all Israel was under his authority.

And the Lord made Solomon great in the eyes of all Israel, clothing him with glory and honour such as no other king in Israel had had before him.

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.

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

And Solomon sent to Huram, king of Tyre, saying, As you did for my father David, sending him cedar-trees for the building of his house,

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.

But who may have strength enough to make a house for him, seeing that the heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be his resting-place? who am I then to make a house for him? But I am building it only for the burning of perfume before him.

The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a man of Tyre, an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron, in stone and wood, in purple and blue and fair linen and red, trained in the cutting of every sort of ornament and the invention of every sort of design; let him be given a place among your expert workmen and those of my lord, your father David.

And King Solomon and all the men of Israel who had come together there with him, were before the ark, making offerings of sheep and oxen more than might be numbered.

Then let your ear be open in heaven, and be the judge of your servants, giving punishment to the wrongdoer, so that his sin may come on his head; and, by your decision, keeping from evil him who has done no wrong.

Then give ear from heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and may see that this house which I have made is truly named by your name.

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.

So Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, for the people had come together from the way into Hamath and from as far as the river of Egypt.

Now the Lord came to Solomon in a vision by night, and said to him, I have given ear to your prayer, and have taken this place for myself as a house where offerings are to be made.

He took in hand the building up of the towns which Huram had given him, causing the children of Israel to make living-places for themselves there.

And Huram sent him, by his servants, ships and experienced seamen, who went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir and came back with four hundred and fifty talents of gold, which they took to King Solomon.

Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to Jerusalem to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions; and with her came a very great train, and camels weighted down with spices, and great stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants and their robes, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses and beasts for transport, regularly year by year.

And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king.

And they sent for him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

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.

But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, but went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him.

And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us, but will you make it less; say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

And the priests and Levites who were in all Israel came together to him from every part of their country.

And she had sons by him, Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham.

And after her he took Maacah, the daughter of Absalom; and she had Abijah and Attai and Ziza and Shelomith by him.

Rehoboam made Abijah, the son of Maacah, chief and ruler among his brothers, for it was his purpose to make him king.

Now when Rehoboam's position as king had been made certain, and he was strong, he gave up the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him.

With twelve hundred war-carriages and sixty thousand horsemen: and the people who came with him out of Egypt were more than might be numbered: Lubim and Sukkiim and Ethiopians.

And whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the armed men went with him taking the body-covers, and then took them back to their room.

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.

And Abijah went out to the fight with an army of men of war, four hundred thousand of his best men; and Jeroboam put his forces in line against him, eight hundred thousand of his best men of war.

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 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.

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 went out against him, and they put their forces in position in the valley north of Mareshah.

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 he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.

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

In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

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.

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.

For the eyes of the Lord go this way and that, through all the earth, letting it be seen that he is the strong support of those whose hearts are true to him. In this you have done foolishly, for from now you will have wars.

Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in prison, burning with wrath against him because of this thing. And at the same time Asa was cruel to some of the people.

So Asa went to rest with his fathers, and death came to him in the forty-first year of his rule.

And they put him into the resting-place which he had made for himself in the town of David, in a bed full of sweet perfumes of all sorts of spices, made by the perfumer's art, and they made a great burning for him.

And some of the Philistines took offerings to Jehoshaphat, and made him payments of silver; and the Arabians gave him flocks, seven thousand, seven hundred sheep, and seven thousand, seven hundred he-goats.

This is the number of them, listed by their families, the captains of thousands of Judah: Adnah, the captain, and with him three hundred thousand men of war;

Second to him Jehohanan, the captain, and with him two hundred and eighty thousand;

After him Amasiah, the son of Zichri, who freely gave himself to the Lord, and with him two hundred thousand men of war;

And the captains of Benjamin: Eliada, a great man of war, and with him two hundred thousand armed with bows and body-covers;

And after him Jehozabad, and with him a hundred and eighty thousand trained for war.