Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house and asked, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?”

“They passed by toward the water,” the woman replied to them. The men searched but did not find them, so they returned to Jerusalem.

So David and all the people with him got up and crossed the Jordan. By daybreak, there was no one who had not crossed the Jordan.

When Ahithophel realized that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He set his affairs in order and hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.

“You must not go!” the people pleaded. “If we have to flee, they will not pay any attention to us. Even if half of us die, they will not pay any attention to us because you are worth 10,000 of us. Therefore, it is better if you support us from the city.”

The man replied to Joab, “Even if I had the weight of 1,000 pieces of silver in my hand, I would not raise my hand against the king’s son. For we heard the king command you, Abishai, and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for me.’

Joab said, “I’m not going to waste time with you!” He then took three spears in his hand and thrust them into Absalom’s heart while he was still alive in the oak tree,

Joab replied to him, “You are not the man to take good news today. You may do it another day, but today you aren’t taking good news, because the king’s son is dead.”

“Now get up! Go out and encourage your soldiers, for I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out, not a man will remain with you tonight. This will be worse for you than all the trouble that has come to you from your youth until now!”

and said to him, “My lord, don’t hold me guilty, and don’t remember your servant’s wrongdoing on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. May the king not take it to heart.

David answered, “Sons of Zeruiah, do we agree on anything? Have you become my adversary today? Should any man be killed in Israel today? Am I not aware that today I’m king over Israel?”

So the king said to Shimei, “You will not die.” Then the king gave him his oath.

Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, also went down to meet the king. He had not taken care of his feet, trimmed his mustache, or washed his clothes from the day the king left until the day he returned safely.

I’m now 80 years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or drinks? Can I still hear the voice of male and female singers? Why should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?

When David came to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the 10 concubines he had left to take care of the palace and placed them under guard. He provided for them, but he was not intimate with them. They were confined until the day of their death, living as widows.

Amasa was not on guard against the sword in Joab’s hand, and Joab stabbed him in the stomach with it and spilled his intestines out on the ground. Joab did not stab him again for Amasa was dead. Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bichri.

Joab protested: “Never! I do not want to destroy!

That is not my intention. There is a man named Sheba son of Bichri, from the hill country of Ephraim, who has rebelled against King David. Deliver this one man, and I will withdraw from the city.”

The woman replied to Joab, “All right. His head will be thrown over the wall to you.”

The Gibeonites were not Israelites but rather a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had taken an oath concerning them, but Saul had tried to kill them in his zeal for the Israelites and Judah. So David summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them.

The Gibeonites said to him, “We are not asking for money from Saul or his family, and we cannot put anyone to death in Israel.”

“Whatever you say, I will do for you,” he said.

They replied to the king, “As for the man who annihilated us and plotted to destroy us so we would not exist within the whole territory of Israel,

Rizpah, Aiah’s daughter, took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on the rock from the beginning of the harvest until the rain poured down from heaven on the bodies. She kept the birds of the sky from them by day and the wild animals by night.

But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to his aid, struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him: “You must never again go out with us to battle. You must not extinguish the lamp of Israel.”

For I have kept the ways of the Lord
and have not turned from my God to wickedness.

Indeed, I have kept all His ordinances in mind
and have not disregarded His statutes.

You widen a place beneath me for my steps,
and my ankles do not give way.

I pursue my enemies and destroy them;
I do not turn back until they are wiped out.

I wipe them out and crush them,
and they do not rise;
they fall beneath my feet.

They look, but there is no one to save them—
they look to the Lord, but He does not answer them.

You have freed me from the feuds among my people;
You have appointed me the head of nations;
a people I had not known serve me.

Is it not true my house is with God?
For He has established an everlasting covenant with me,
ordered and secured in every detail.
Will He not bring about
my whole salvation and my every desire?

David said, “Lord, I would never do such a thing! Is this not the blood of men who risked their lives?” So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three warriors.

Was he not more honored than the Three? He became their commander even though he did not become one of the Three.

He was the most honored of the Thirty, but he did not become one of the Three. David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

The king answered Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 20 ounces of silver.

Now King David was old and getting on in years. Although they covered him with bedclothes, he could not get warm.

The girl was of unsurpassed beauty, and she became the king’s caregiver. She served him, but he was not intimate with her.

but Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David’s warriors did not side with Adonijah.

but he did not invite Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, the warriors, or his brother Solomon.

Then Nathan said to Bathsheba, Solomon’s mother, “Have you not heard that Adonijah son of Haggith has become king and our lord David does not know it?

Go, approach King David and say to him, ‘My lord the king, did you not swear to your servant: Your son Solomon is to become king after me, and he is the one who is to sit on my throne? So why has Adonijah become king?’

He has lavishly sacrificed oxen, fattened cattle, and sheep. He invited all the king’s sons, Abiathar the priest, and Joab the commander of the army, but he did not invite your servant Solomon.

But he did not invite me—me, your servant—or Zadok the priest or Benaiah son of Jehoiada or your servant Solomon.

I’m certain my lord the king would not have let this happen without letting your servant know who will sit on my lord the king’s throne after him.”

“Unfortunately not,” Jonathan answered him. “Our lord King David has made Solomon king.

It was reported to Solomon: “Look, Adonijah fears King Solomon, and he has taken hold of the horns of the altar, saying, ‘Let King Solomon first swear to me that he will not kill his servant with the sword.’”

Then Solomon said, “If he is a man of character, not a single hair of his will fall to the ground, but if evil is found in him, he dies.”

Act according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray head descend to Sheol in peace.

Then Solomon took an oath by the Lord: “May God punish me and do so severely if Adonijah has not made this request at the cost of his life.

The king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go to your fields in Anathoth. Even though you deserve to die, I will not put you to death today, since you carried the ark of the Lord God in the presence of my father David and you suffered through all that my father suffered.”

The news reached Joab. Since he had supported Adonijah but not Absalom, Joab fled to the Lord’s tabernacle and took hold of the horns of the altar.

So why have you not kept the Lord’s oath and the command that I gave you?”

However, the people were sacrificing on the high places, because until that time a temple for the Lord’s name had not been built.

At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask. What should I give you?”

So God said to him, “Because you have requested this and did not ask for long life or riches for yourself, or the death of your enemies, but you asked discernment for yourself to understand justice,

In addition, I will give you what you did not ask for: both riches and honor, so that no man in any kingdom will be your equal during your entire life.

During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him.

She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was asleep. She laid him at her breast, and she put her dead son in my arms.

When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, I discovered he was dead. That morning, when I looked closely at him I realized that he was not the son I gave birth to.”

The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”

But the other one said, “He will not be mine or yours. Cut him in two!”

“You know my father David was not able to build a temple for the name of Yahweh his God. This was because of the warfare all around him until the Lord put his enemies under his feet.

“Therefore, command that cedars from Lebanon be cut down for me. My servants will be with your servants, and I will pay your servants’ wages according to whatever you say, for you know that not a man among us knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians.”

not including his 3,300 deputies in charge of the work. They ruled over the people doing the work.

I will live among the Israelites and not abandon My people Israel.”

The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with ornamental gourds and flower blossoms. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

And the water cart’s opening inside the crown on top was 18 inches wide. The opening was round, made as a pedestal 27 inches wide. On it were carvings, but their frames were square, not round.

Solomon left all the utensils unweighed because there were so many; the weight of the bronze was not determined.

King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel, who had gathered around him and were with him in front of the ark, were sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted or numbered, because there were so many.

The poles were so long that their ends were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary, but they were not seen from outside the sanctuary; they are there to this day.

and because of the cloud, the priests were not able to continue ministering, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

“Since the day I brought My people Israel out 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.
But I have chosen David to rule My people Israel.”

Yet you are not the one to build it;
instead, your son, your own offspring,
will build it for My name.”

so that Your eyes may watch over this temple night and day,
toward the place where You said:
My name will be there,
and so that You may hear the prayer
that Your servant prays toward this place.

Even for the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel
but has come from a distant land
because of Your name—

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 the enemy’s country—
whether distant or nearby—

“May the Lord be praised! He has given rest to His people Israel according to all He has said. Not one of all the good promises He made through His servant Moses has failed.

May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our ancestors. May He not abandon us or leave us

May my words I have made my petition with before the Lord be near the Lord our God day and night, so that He may uphold His servant’s cause and the cause of His people Israel, as each day requires,

If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands—My statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and worship them,

So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.

As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites—

But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery; they were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry.

But I didn’t believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, I was not even told half. Your wisdom and prosperity far exceed the report I heard.

The king made the almug wood into steps for the Lord’s temple and the king’s palace and into lyres and harps for the singers. Never before had such almug wood come, and the like has not been seen again even to this very day.

from the nations that the Lord had told the Israelites about, “Do not intermarry with them, and they must not intermarry with you, because they will turn you away from Me to their gods.” Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them.

When Solomon was old, his wives seduced him to follow other gods. He was not completely devoted to Yahweh his God, as his father David had been.

Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and unlike his father David, he did not completely follow Yahweh.

He had commanded him about this, so that he would not follow other gods, but Solomon did not do what the Lord had commanded.

Then the Lord said to Solomon, “Since you have done this and did not keep My covenant and My statutes, which I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

However, I will not do it during your lifetime because of your father David; I will tear it out of your son’s hand.

Yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son because of my servant David and because of Jerusalem that I chose.”

For they have abandoned Me; they have bowed the knee to Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, to Chemosh, the god of Moab, and to Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways to do what is right in My eyes and to carry out My statutes and My judgments as his father David did.

“‘However, I will not take the whole kingdom from his hand but will let him be ruler all the days of his life because of My servant David, whom I chose and who kept My commands and My statutes.

I will humble David’s descendants, because of their unfaithfulness, but not forever.’”

The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events came from the Lord to carry out His word, which the Lord had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

When all Israel saw that the king had not listened to them, the people answered him:

What portion do we have in David?
We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
Israel, return to your tents;
David, now look after your own house!

So Israel went to their tents,

‘This is what the Lord says: You are not to march up and fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Each of you must return home, for I have done this.’”

So they listened to what the Lord said and went back as He had told them.

Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and set up priests from every class of people who were not Levites.

When the king heard the word that the man of God had cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Arrest him!” But the hand he stretched out against him withered, and he could not pull it back to himself.

for this is what I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or go back the way you came.’”

So he went another way; he did not go back by the way he had come to Bethel.