From the day when I took my people Israel out of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; but I made selection of David to be king over my people Israel.

Now it was in the heart of David my father to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name;

Then Solomon took his place before the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present, and stretching out his hands to heaven,

And you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day.

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 on the seat of the kingdom of Israel before me, if only your children give attention to their ways, walking before me as you have done.

So now, O God of Israel, it is my prayer that you will make your word come true which you said to your servant David, my father.

But is it truly possible that God may be housed 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, O Lord God, and to his prayer for grace; give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant sends up to you this day;

That your eyes may be open to this house night and day, to this place of which you have said, My name will be there; hearing the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place.

Give ear to the prayers of your servant, and the prayers of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear in heaven your living-place, and hearing, have mercy.

If a man does wrong to his neighbour, and has to take an oath, and comes before your altar to take his oath in this house:

When your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers to you and requesting your grace in this house:

Then give ear in heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again into the land which you gave to their fathers.

When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because of their sin against you; if they make prayers with their faces turned to this place, honouring your name and turning away from their sin when you send trouble on them:

Then give ear in heaven, so that the sin of your servants, and 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.

Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

Give ear in heaven your living-place, acting in mercy; and give to every man whose secret heart is open to you, the reward of all his ways; for you, and you only, have knowledge of the hearts of all the children of men:

So that they may give you worship all the days of their life in the land which you gave to our fathers.

(For they will have news of your great name and your strong hand and your out-stretched arm;) when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house:

Give ear in 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 that they may see that this house which I have put up is truly named by your name.

If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayer to the Lord, turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have made for your name:

Give ear in heaven to their prayer and their cry for grace, and see right done to them.

If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away as prisoners into a strange land, far off or near;

And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, and are turned again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil;

And with all their heart and soul are turned again to you, in the land of those who took them prisoners, and make their prayer to you, turning their eyes to this land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I made for your name:

Then give ear to their prayer and to their cry in heaven your living-place, and see right done to them;

Let your eyes be open to your servant's prayer for grace and to the prayer of your people Israel, hearing them when their cry comes to you.

For you made them separate from all the peoples of the earth, to be your heritage, as you said by Moses your servant, when you took our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.

Then Solomon, after making all these prayers and requests for grace to the Lord, got up from his knees before the altar of the Lord, where his hands had been stretched out in prayer to heaven;

And, getting on his feet, he gave a blessing to all the men of Israel, saying with a loud voice,

Praise be to the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, as he gave them his word to do; every word of all his oath, which he gave by the hand of Moses his servant, has come true.

Turning our hearts to himself, guiding us to go in all his ways, to keep his orders and his laws and his decisions, which he gave to our fathers.

And may these my words, the words of my prayer to the Lord, be before the Lord our God day and night, so that he may see right done to his servant and to his people Israel, day by day as we have need.

Then let your hearts be without sin before the Lord our God, walking in his laws and keeping his orders as at this day.

And Solomon gave to the Lord for peace-offerings, twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel kept the feast of the opening of the Lord's house.

The same day the king made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering there the burned offering and the meal offering and the fat of the peace-offerings; for there was not room on the brass altar of the Lord for the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat of the peace-offerings.

So Solomon and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, (for the people had come together from the way into Hamath to the river of Egypt,) kept the feast at that time before the Lord our God, for two weeks, even fourteen days.

And on the eighth day he sent the people away, and, blessing the king, they went to their tents full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David his servant and to Israel his people.

Now when Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all Solomon's desires, which he had in mind were effected;

The Lord came to him again in a vision, as he had done at Gibeon;

And the Lord said to him, Your prayers and your requests for grace have come to my ears: I have made holy this house which you have made, and I have put my name there for ever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

As for you, if you will go on your way before me, as David your father did, uprightly and with a true heart, doing what I have given you orders to do, keeping my laws and my decisions;

Then I will make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel.

But if you are turned from my ways, you or your children, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods and give them worship:

And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder at it and make whistling sounds; and they will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house?

Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house,

But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.

And he said, What sort of towns are these which you have given me, my brother? So they were named the land of Cabul, to this day.

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ...

And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

Their children who were still in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not been able to put to complete destruction, them did Solomon put to forced work, to this day.

But Solomon did not put the children of Israel to forced work; they were the men of war, his servants, his captains, and his chiefs, captains of his war-carriages and of his horsemen.

At that time Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her: then he made the Millo.

Three times in the year it was Solomon's way to give burned offerings and peace-offerings on the altar he had made to the Lord, causing his fire-offering to go up on the altar before the Lord.

And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions.

And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels weighted down with spices, and stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which the king did not make clear to her.

And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.

May the Lord your God be praised, whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; because the Lord's love for Israel is eternal, he has made you king, to be their judge in righteousness.

And the sea-force of Hiram, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with much sandal-wood and jewels.

And from the sandal-wood the king made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody: never has such sandal-wood been seen to this day.

And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what he gave her freely from the impulse of his heart. So she went back to her country, she and her servants.

Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents;

In addition to what came to him from the business of the traders, and from all the kings of the Arabians, and from the rulers of the country.

And Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it.

There were six steps going up to it, and the top of it was round at the back, there were arms on the two sides of the seat, and two lions by the side of the arms;

And all King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold; not one was of silver, for no one gave a thought to silver in the days of King Solomon.

And from all over the earth they came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

The nations of which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You are not to take wives from them and they are not to take wives from you; or they will certainly make you go after their gods: to these Solomon was united in love.

For it came about that when Solomon was old, his heart was turned away to other gods by his wives; and his heart was no longer true to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been.

And so he did for all his strange wives, who made offerings with burning of perfumes to their gods.

And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision;

And had given him orders about this very thing, that he was not to go after other gods; but he did not keep the orders of the Lord.

So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you have done this, and have not kept my agreement and my laws, which I gave you, I will take the kingdom away from you by force and will give it to your servant.

I will not do it in your life-time, because of your father David, but I will take it from your son.

Still I will not take all the kingdom from him; but I will give one tribe to your son, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town of my selection.

So the Lord sent Hadad the Edomite to make trouble for Solomon: he was of the king's seed in Edom.

And when David had sent destruction on Edom, and Joab, the captain of the army, had gone to put the dead into the earth, and had put to death every male in Edom;

Hadad, being still a young boy, went in flight to Egypt, with certain Edomites, servants of his father;

And they went on from Midian and came to Paran; and, taking men from Paran with them, they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who gave him a house and gave orders for his food and gave him land.

Now Hadad was very pleasing to Pharaoh, so that he gave him the sister of his wife, Tahpenes the queen, for his wife.

Now when Hadad had news in Egypt that David had been put to rest with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, Send me back to my country.

But Pharaoh said to him, What have you been short of while you have been with me, that you are desiring to go back to your country? And he said, Nothing; but even so, send me back.

He got some men together and made himself captain of a band of outlaws; and went to Damascus and became king there.

He was a trouble to Israel all through the days of Solomon. And this is the damage Hadad did: he was cruel to Israel while he was ruler over Edom.

The way in which his hand came to be lifted up against the king was this: Solomon was building the Millo and making good the damaged parts of the town of his father David;

And Jeroboam was an able and responsible man; and Solomon saw that he was a good worker and made him overseer of all the work given to the sons of Joseph.

Now at that time, when Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite came across him on the road; now Ahijah had put on a new robe; and the two of them were by themselves in the open country.

And he said to Jeroboam, Take ten of the parts, for this is what the Lord has said: See, I will take the kingdom away from Solomon by force, and will give ten tribes to you;

Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.

But I will take the kingdom from his son, and give it to you.

And one tribe I will give to his son, so that David my servant may have a light for ever burning before me in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine to put my name there.

And if you give attention to the orders I give you, walking in my ways and doing what is right in my eyes and keeping my laws and my orders as David my servant did; then I will be with you, building up for you a safe house, as I did for David, and I will give Israel to you.

And Solomon was looking for a chance to put Jeroboam to death; but he went in flight to Egypt, to Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.

And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father: and Solomon went to rest with his fathers and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

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

And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim;

And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,