And through all the tribes of Israel the people were having arguments, saying, The king made us safe from the hands of those who were against us and made us free from the hands of the Philistines; and now he has gone in flight from the land, because of Absalom.

And the hearts of the men of Judah were moved like one man; so that they sent to the king, saying, Come back, with all your servants.

For all my father's family were only dead men before my lord the king: and still you put your servant among those whose place is at the king's table. What right then have I to say anything more to the king?

And in answer to the men of Judah, the men of Israel said, We have ten parts in the king, and we are the first in order of birth: why did you make nothing of us? and were we not the first to make suggestions for getting the king back? And the words of the men of Judah were more violent than the words of the men of Israel.

So all the men of Israel, turning away from David, went after Sheba, the son of Bichri: but the men of Judah were true to their king, going with him from Jordan as far as Jerusalem.

And David came to his house at Jerusalem: and the king took the ten women to whom he had given the care of the house, and had them shut up, and gave them the necessaries of life, but did not go near them. So they were shut up till the day of their death, living as widows.

When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came face to face with them. Now Joab had on his war-dress, and round him a band from which his sword was hanging in its cover; and while he was walking, it came out, falling to the earth.

And Amasa was stretched out in a pool of blood in the middle of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people were stopping, he took Amasa out of the highway and put him in a field, with a cloth over him, when he saw that everyone who went by came to a stop.

And Sheva was the scribe, and Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

In the days of David they were short of food for three years, year after year; and David went before the Lord for directions. And the Lord said, On Saul and on his family there is blood, because he put the Gibeonites to death.

Then the king sent for the Gibeonites; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but were the last of the Amorites, to whom the children of Israel had given an oath; but Saul, in his passion for the children of Israel and Judah, had made an attempt on their lives:)

And they said to the king, As for the man by whom we were wasted, and who made designs against us to have us completely cut off from the land of Israel,

And the Philistines went to war again with Israel; and David went down with his people, and while they were at Gob they had a fight with the Philistines:

These four were of the offspring of the Rephaim in Gath; and they came to their end by the hands of David and his servants.

The cords of hell were round me: the nets of death came on me.

Then the earth was moved with a violent shock; the bases of heaven were moved and shaking, because he was angry.

There went up a smoke from his nose, and a fire of destruction from his mouth: coals were lighted by it.

The heavens were bent, so that he might come down; and it was dark under his feet.

And he sent out his arrows, driving them in all directions; by his flames of fire they were troubled.

Then the deep beds of the sea were seen, and the bases of the world were uncovered, because of the Lord's wrath, because of the breath of his mouth.

He made me free from my strong hater, from those who were against me, because they were stronger than I.

For all his decisions were before me, and I did not put away his laws from me.

They were crying out, but there was no one to come to their help: even to the Lord, but he gave them no answer.

Then they were crushed as small as the dust of the earth, stamped down under my feet like the waste of the streets.

These were the acts of Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, who had a great name among the thirty men of war.

And the king said to Joab and the captains of the army, who were with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, and have all the people numbered, so that I may be certain of the number of the people.

And Joab gave the king the number of all the people: there were in Israel eight hundred thousand fighting men able to take up arms; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

And he had talk with Joab, the son of Zeruiah, and with Abiathar the priest; and they were on his side and gave him their support.

And all the people came up after him, piping with pipes, and they were glad with great joy, so that the earth was shaking with the sound.

And it came to the ears of Adonijah and all the guests who were with him, when their meal was ended. And Joab, hearing the sound of the horn, said, What is the reason of this noise as if the town was worked up?

And while the words were on his lips, Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest, came; and Adonijah said, Come in; for you are a man of good faith and the news which you have for us will be good.

And to Abiathar the priest the king said, Go to Anathoth, to your fields; for death would be your right reward; but I will not put you to death now, because you took up the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and you were with him in all his troubles.

Solomon became the son-in-law of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter as his wife, keeping her in the town of David, till the house he was building for himself, and the house of the Lord and the wall round Jerusalem, were complete.

But all this time the people were making their offerings in the high places, because no house had been put up to the name of the Lord till those days.

Now these words and Solomon's request were pleasing to the Lord.

And three days after the birth of my child, this woman had a child: we were together, no other-person was with us in the house but we two only.

And these were his chief men: Azariah, the son of Zadok, was the priest;

Elihoreph and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha, were scribes; Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, was the recorder;

Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, was head of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

... the son of Hesed in Arubboth; Socoh and all the land of Hepher were under his control;

Geber, the son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan; and one overseer had authority over all the overseers who were in the land.

Judah and Israel were as great in number as the sand by the seaside, and they took their food and drink with joy in their hearts.

And Solomon was ruler over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and as far as the edge of Egypt; men gave him offerings and were his servants all the days of his life.

So Judah and Israel were living safely, every man under his vine and his fig-tree, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon.

You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet.

And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them.

By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone.

(And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.)

The walls of the house were covered inside with cedar-wood boards; from the floor to the roof of the house they were covered inside with wood; and the floor was covered with boards of cypress-wood.

Plates of gold were put all through the house till it was covered completely (and the altar in the inmost room was all covered with gold).

The two winged ones were ten cubits high, of the same size and form.

The two of them were ten cubits high.

These were placed inside the inner house, their outstretched wings touching the walls of the house, one touching one wall and one the other, while their other wings were touching in the middle.

These winged ones were plated over with gold.

And all the walls of the house inside and out were ornamented with forms of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers.

On the olive-wood doors were cut designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, all of them, with the doors, plated with gold.

Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square:

These were ornamented with designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, plated over with gold.

And it was covered with cedar over the forty-five supports which were on the pillars, fifteen in a line.

There were three lines of window-frames, window facing window in every line.

All these buildings were made, inside and out, from base to crowning stone, and outside to the great walled square, of highly priced stone, cut to different sizes with cutting-instruments.

Overhead were highly priced stones cut to measure, and cedar-wood.

And he made the two crowns to be put on the tops of the pillars, of brass made soft in the fire; the crowns were five cubits high.

There were nets of open-work for the crowns on the tops of the pillars, a net of open-work for one and a net of open-work for the other.

The crowns on the tops of the pillars were ornamented with a design of flowers, and were four cubits across.

And there were crowns on the two pillars near the round part by the network, and there were two hundred apples in lines round every crown.

And under the edge of it, circling it all round for ten cubits, were two lines of flower buds, made together with it from liquid metal.

And the bases were made in this way; their sides were square, fixed in a framework;

And on the square sides between the frames were lions, oxen, and winged ones; and the same on the frame; and over and under the lions and the oxen and the winged ones were steps.

Every base had four wheels of brass, turning on brass rods, and their four angles had angle-plates under them; the angle-plates under the base were of metal, and there were ornaments at the side of every one.

The mouth of it inside the angle-plate was one cubit across; it was round like a pillar, a cubit and a half across; it had designs cut on it; the sides were square, not round.

The four wheels were under the frames, and the rods on which the wheels were fixed were in the base; the wheels were a cubit and a half high.

The wheels were made like carriage-wheels, the rods on which they were fixed, the parts forming their edges, their rods and the middle points of them, were all formed out of liquid metal.

And there were four angle-plates at the four angles of every base, forming part of the structure of the base.

All the ten bases were made in this way, after the same design, of the same size and form.

The two pillars and the two cups of the crowns which were on the tops of the two pillars; and the network covering the two cups of the crowns on the tops of the pillars,

And the pots and the spades and the basins; all the vessels which Hiram made for King Solomon, for the house of the Lord, were of polished brass.

And the cups and the scissors and the basins and the spoons and the fire-trays, all of gold; and the pins on which the doors were turned, the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and the doors of the Temple, all of gold.

They took up the ark of the Lord, and the Tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels which were in the Tent; all these the priests and the Levites took up.

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

For their wings were outstretched over the place where the ark was, covering the ark and its rods.

The rods were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place, in front of the inmost room; but they were not seen from outside: and there they are to this day.

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

Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

Now the king, and all Israel with him, were making offerings before the Lord.

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;

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

As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel;

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.

These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work.

Hiram sent his servants, who were experienced seamen, in the sea-force with Solomon's men.

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 the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

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 twelve lions were placed on the one side and on the other side on the six steps: there was nothing like it in any kingdom.

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.

Now a number of strange women were loved by Solomon, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:

(For Joab and all Israel were there six months till every male in Edom had been cut off;)

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.