So then, O Yahweh, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father what you promised to him, saying, 'For you, no man will be cut off from before me who [will be] sitting on the throne of Israel, if only your sons keep their ways to walk before me just as you have walked before me.'

You must regard the prayer of your servant and his plea! O Yahweh my God, listen to the pleading and to the prayer that your servant [is] praying before you this day,

When you shut up the heavens so there is no rain because they have sinned against you, then they pray to this place and they confess your name and they return from their sin because you punished them,

then you shall hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, for you will teach them the good way in which they should go, and you will give rain upon your land which you have given to your people as an inheritance.

any prayer or any plea which is [offered] by any person for all of your people Israel, who each knows the infestation of his [own] heart and spreads out his palms to this house,

then you shall hear in heaven the place of your dwelling, and you shall forgive and act and give to the man whose heart you know, according to all his ways, for you alone know the heart of all the sons of man.

Also for the foreigner who is not from your people Israel, and he comes from a distant land because of your name,

you shall hear in heaven, the place of your dwelling, and act according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you as your people Israel, and to know that your name has been invoked over this house that I have built.

"If they sin against you (for there is not a person who does not sin) and you are angry with them and you give them to an enemy and they take them captive to the land of the enemy far or near,

For you have separated them for yourself as an inheritance from all the peoples of the earth, as you promised through the hand of Moses your servant when you brought out our ancestors from Egypt, my Lord Yahweh!"

May Yahweh our God be with us as he was with our ancestors, and may he not leave us or abandon us,

Let these my words which I pleaded before Yahweh [be] near to Yahweh our God, by day and by night, to maintain the justice of his servant and the justice of his people Israel {as each day requires}

so that all of the people of the earth may know that Yahweh, he [is] God; there is none other.

Let your heart be completely with Yahweh our God by walking in his statutes, by keeping his commands as this day."

It happened that as Solomon finished the building of the house of Yahweh, the king's house, and all the things Solomon desired to do,

Yahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him in Gibeon.

As for you, if you walk before me as David your father walked, with {integrity of heart} and with uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, [and if] you keep my ordinances and my judgments,

then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'A man will not be cut off for you from upon the throne of Israel.'

This [is] the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the house of Yahweh and his house, the Millo, the walls of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire. He had also killed the Canaanites who were living in the city and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, the wife of Solomon.

[as well as] Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness in the land;

As soon as the daughter of Pharaoh went up from the city of David to her house which he built for her, then he built the Millo.

King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-Geber which [is] near Elath on the shore of the {Red Sea} in the land of Edom.

Then she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, abundant spices, and precious stones. Spices as these did not come again in such abundance [as that which] the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon.

The king made a raised structure for the house of Yahweh and for the house of the king out of the almug wood, as well as lyres and harps for the singers. [This much] almug wood has not come nor been seen [again] up to this day.

All of the drinking vessels of King Solomon [were] gold, and all the vessels for the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. There was no silver; [it was] not considered as something valuable in the days of Solomon.

The king made the silver in Jerusalem as the stones, and the cedars he made as the sycamore fig trees which are in the Shephelah in abundance.

It happened at the time of Solomon's old age that his wives guided his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father [had been].

So Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did not fully [follow] after Yahweh as David his father.

Hadad found great favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, and he gave him the sister of his wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen, as wife.

God had [also] raised Rezon the son of Eliada as an adversary against him, who had fled from Hadadezer the king of Zobah, his master.

This [is] the reason that he rebelled against the king: [when] Solomon built the Millo, he closed the gap of the city of David his father.

because he has forsaken me, and they bowed down to Ashtoreth, the god of [the] Sidonians, to Chemosh, the god of Moab, and to Molech, the god of the {Ammonites}. They did not walk in my ways to do right in my eyes, my ordinances, or my judgments, as [did] David his father.

It shall be that if you listen to all that I command you and you walk in my ways and you do right in my eyes by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, then I will be with you, and I will build an enduring house for you as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you.

"Your father made our yoke heavy; now lighten the hard labor of your father and the heavy yoke which he placed on us, and we will serve you."

He said to them, "What [are] you advising that we should reply to this people who spoke to me by saying, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us.'"

Then the youngsters who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, "Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you: 'Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten [it] for us,' you shall say to them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.

Jeroboam and all of the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had spoken: "Return to me on the third day."

Then the king answered all the people harshly, [as] he had rejected the advice of the old men that they had offered.

When all of Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, "{What share do we have in David}? [There is] no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, Israel! Now look to your house, David!" Then Israel went to their tents.

This thing became a sin, and the people walked before the one as far as Dan.

He gave a sign on that day, saying, "This [is] the sign that Yahweh has predetermined: Look, [this] altar will be torn [apart], and the ashes that [are] on it will be poured out."

Then the king responded and said to the man of God, "Please entreat the favor of Yahweh your God, and pray for me that my hand may return to me." So the man of God entreated the face of Yahweh, and the hand of the king returned to him, as it was in the beginning.

As men [were] passing by and they saw the dead body thrown in the road and the lion standing beside the dead body, they came and told it in the city where the old prophet [was] living.

When the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard, he said, "It [is] the man of God who disobeyed the mouth of Yahweh, and Yahweh has given him to the lion. He tore him in pieces and killed him according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken to him."

It happened after he buried him that he said to his sons, "When I die, you shall bury me in the tomb where the man of God [is] buried; you shall lay my bones beside his bones.

For surely, the thing which he proclaimed by the word of Yahweh against the altar which [is] in Bethel will happen, [as it will] against all the houses of the high places which [are] in the cities of Samaria."

Jeroboam said to his wife, "Please get up and disguise yourself so that they will not know that you [are] the wife of Jeroboam, and go [to] Shiloh. Look, Ahijah the prophet is there, and he spoke concerning me [before I became] king over this people.

Then Yahweh said to Ahijah, "Look, the wife of Jeroboam [is] coming to seek a word from you about her son, for he [is] ill. {Thus and so} you shall say to her. When she comes, she [will be] disguising herself."

I tore the kingdom from the house of David and I gave it to you. But you were not like my servant David who kept my commandments, and who went after me with all his heart, to do only [what is] right in my eyes.

Therefore, look, I am about to bring disaster upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off {males} from Jeroboam, bond or free, in Israel. I will burn after the house of Jeroboam as one burns after the manure, until it is finished.

As for you, get up. Go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child will die.

Yahweh will strike Israel as one shakes the reed plant in the water, and he will root Israel up from this good land that he gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the River because they have made their sacred poles [which are] provoking Yahweh.

Then the wife of Jeroboam got up, went, and came to Tirzah. [As] she [was] coming to the threshold of the house, the boy died.

He walked in all the sins of his father that he had done before him, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father.

Abijam slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city of David, and Asa his son became king in his place.

In the twentieth year of Jeroboam the king of Israel, Asa became the king of Judah.

Asa did right in the eyes of Yahweh, like David his ancestor.

Also, he had Maacah his mother removed from the office of queen mother, [as] she had made a repulsive image for the Asherah. Asa also cut down her repulsive image and burned it in the Wadi Kidron.

But the high places he did not remove. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was completely with Yahweh all of his days.

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all of their days.

Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and he built Ramah {to hinder the coming and going of anyone to Asa} king of Judah.

Asa took all of the silver and gold remaining in the storerooms of the house of Yahweh and in the treasury rooms of the house of the king, and he gave them into the hand of his servants; so King Asa sent them to Ben-Hadad the son of Tabrimmon the son of Hezion, the king of Aram, who lived in Damascus, saying,

Ben-Hadad listened to King Asa, and he sent the commanders of his armies against the cities of Israel and he attacked Ijon, Dan, Abel-Beth-Maacah, and all of Kinnereth, in addition to all the land of Naphtali.

Then King Asa proclaimed among all of Israel that there was no one free from obligation, so they carried the stones of Ramah and its wood with which Baasha had built, and King Asa rebuilt Geba in Benjamin with them, and the Mizpah.

The remainder of the acts of Asa, all of his achievements, all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah? But at the time of his old age, {he developed a foot disease}.

Asa slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David his ancestor; Jehoshaphat his son became king in his place.

Nadab the son of Jeroboam began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.

and Baasha killed him in the third year of Asa the king of Judah, and he reigned in his place.

It happened that as soon as he became king, he killed all of the house of Jeroboam. There was no one left of Jeroboam who breathed, until he had destroyed him according to the word of Yahweh that he had spoken by the hand of his servant, Ahijah the Shilonite,

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah had become king over all of Israel; [he lived] in Tirzah twenty-four years.

In the twenty-sixth year of Asa king of Judah, Elah the son of Baasha became king over Israel for two years.

Zimri came and struck him down and killed him in the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah and became king in his place.

It happened that as soon as he became king, at the moment he sat on his throne, he killed all of the house of Baasha. He left {no males} [among] his kindred or [any of] his friends.

In the twenty-seventh year of Asa king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days in Tirzah. Now the army was encamping against Gibbethon which belonged to the Philistines.

In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel [for] twelve years. He reigned in Tirzah six years,

Now Ahab son of Omri became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah. Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years.

{If it wasn't enough that he went} after the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he also took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal the king of the Sidonians. He went and served Baal and bowed down to him.

Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe of Gilead said to Ahab, "{As Yahweh lives}, the God of Israel before whom I stand, there shall surely not be dew nor rain these years {except by my command}."

She said, "{As Yahweh your God lives}, surely I do not have a cake, {but only a handful of flour} in the jar and a little olive oil in the jug. Here I [am] gathering a few pieces of wood, and I will go and prepare it for me and my son, that we might eat it and die."

Then he called to Yahweh and said, "O Yahweh my God, are you also causing evil to come upon the widow with whom I [am] dwelling as an alien by causing her son to die?"

Elijah then took the child and brought him down from the upper room to the house and gave him to his mother. Elijah said, "Look, your son [is] alive."

Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now this I know, that you [are] a man of God and the word of Yahweh in your mouth [is] truth."

It happened that Obadiah [was] on the way, and suddenly Elijah was there to meet him. When he recognized him, he fell on his face and said, "[Is] this you, my lord Elijah?"

He said to him, "I [am]. Go, say to your lord, 'Elijah [is] here.'"

{As Yahweh your God lives}, surely there is not a nation or a kingdom to which my lord has not sent me to seek you. [If] they would say, 'He is not here,' then he would make the kingdom or the nation swear that it could not find you.

Now you [are] saying, 'Go, say to your lord: "Elijah [is] here." '

Now you [are] saying, 'Go, say to your lord: "Elijah [is] here," ' and he will kill me."

Elijah said, "{As Yahweh of hosts lives}, before whom I stand, I will certainly show myself to him today."

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, "[Is] this you [who] throws Israel into confusion?"

Elijah approached to all the people and said, "How long [will] you [go] limping over two opinions? If Yahweh [is] God, go after him; but if Baal, go after him." But the people did not answer him a word.

Let them give us two bulls, and let them choose for themselves one bull, cut him in pieces, and put it on the wood, but don't let them start a fire on it. I will prepare the other bull and set it on the wood, but I will put no fire [on it].

Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh, and it shall be that the god who answers by fire, he [is] God." Then all the people answered and said, "The word [is] good!"

So they took the bull that he allowed to them, prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, "O Baal, answer us!" But there was no voice and there was no answer, so they limped about the altar which they had made.

It happened at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, "Call out with a loud voice, for he [is] a god! Perhaps he is meditating, or {is using the bathroom}, or [is] on a journey. Perhaps he [is] asleep and must wake up!"

So they called out with a loud voice, and they cut themselves with swords and with spears as was their custom, until the blood poured out over them.

It happened as noon passed, they raged until the [time of] the evening offering, but there was no voice, there was no answer, and no [one] paid attention.

When all the people saw, they fell on their faces and said, "Yahweh, he [is] God! Yahweh, he [is] God!"

Then Elijah said to Ahab, "Go up, eat and drink, for [there is] the sound of the noise of rain."