The Holy Bible

[8:22] Then in the presence of the people Solomon went and stood in front of the altar, where he raised his arms

[8:23] and prayed, “Lord God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below! You keep your covenant with your people and show them your love when they live in wholehearted obedience to you.

[8:24] You have kept the promise you made to my father David; today every word has been fulfilled.

[8:25] And now, Lord God of Israel, I pray that you will also keep the other promise you made to my father when you told him that there would always be one of his descendants ruling as king of Israel, provided they obeyed you as carefully as he did.

[8:26] So now, O God of Israel, let everything come true that you promised to my father David, your servant.

[8:27] “But can you, O God, really live on earth? Not even all of heaven is large enough to hold you, so how can this Temple that I have built be large enough?

[8:28] Lord my God, I am your servant. Listen to my prayer, and grant the requests I make to you today.

[8:29] Watch over this Temple day and night, this place where you have chosen to be worshiped. Hear me when I face this Temple and pray.

[8:30] Hear my prayers and the prayers of your people when they face this place and pray. In your home in heaven hear us and forgive us.

[8:31] “When a person is accused of wronging another and is brought to your altar in this Temple to take an oath that he is innocent,

[8:32] O Lord, listen in heaven and judge your servants. Punish the guilty one as he deserves, and acquit the one who is innocent.

[8:33] “When your people Israel are defeated by their enemies because they have sinned against you, and then when they turn to you and come to this Temple, humbly praying to you for forgiveness,

[8:34] listen to them in heaven. Forgive the sins of your people and bring them back to the land which you gave to their ancestors.

[8:35] “When you hold back the rain because your people have sinned against you, and then when they repent and face this Temple, humbly praying to you,

[8:36] listen to them in heaven. Forgive the sins of the king and of the people of Israel, and teach them to do what is right. Then, O Lord, send rain on this land of yours, which you gave to your people as a permanent possession.

[8:37] “When there is famine in the land or an epidemic or the crops are destroyed by scorching winds or swarms of locusts, or when your people are attacked by their enemies, or when there is disease or sickness among them,

[8:38] listen to their prayers. If any of your people Israel, out of heartfelt sorrow, stretch out their hands in prayer toward this Temple,

[8:39] hear their prayer. Listen to them in your home in heaven, forgive them, and help them. You alone know the thoughts of the human heart. Deal with each person as he deserves,

[8:40] so that your people may obey you all the time they live in the land which you gave to our ancestors.

[8:43] listen to his prayer. In heaven, where you live, hear him and do what he asks you to do, so that all the peoples of the world may know you and obey you, as your people Israel do. Then they will know that this Temple I have built is the place where you are to be worshiped.

[8:44] “When you command your people to go into battle against their enemies and they pray to you, wherever they are, facing this city which you have chosen and this Temple which I have built for you,

[8:45] listen to their prayers. Hear them in heaven and give them victory.

[8:46] “When your people sin against you—and there is no one who does not sin—and in your anger you let their enemies defeat them and take them as prisoners to some other land, even if that land is far away,

[8:47] listen to your people's prayers. If there in that land they repent and pray to you, confessing how sinful and wicked they have been, hear their prayers, O Lord.

[8:48] If in that land they truly and sincerely repent and pray to you as they face toward this land which you gave to our ancestors, this city which you have chosen, and this Temple which I have built for you,

[8:49] then listen to their prayers. In your home in heaven hear them and be merciful to them.

[8:50] Forgive all their sins and their rebellion against you, and make their enemies treat them with kindness.

[8:51] They are your own people, whom you brought out of Egypt, that blazing furnace.

[8:52] “Sovereign Lord, may you always look with favor on your people Israel and their king, and hear their prayer whenever they call to you for help.

[8:53] You chose them from all the peoples to be your own people, as you told them through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”

[8:54] After Solomon had finished praying to the Lord, he stood up in front of the altar, where he had been kneeling with uplifted hands.

[8:55] In a loud voice he asked God's blessings on all the people assembled there. He said,

[8:56] “Praise the Lord who has given his people peace, as he promised he would. He has kept all the generous promises he made through his servant Moses.

[8:57] May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us or abandon us;

[8:58] may he make us obedient to him, so that we will always live as he wants us to live, keeping all the laws and commands he gave our ancestors.

[8:59] May the Lord our God remember at all times this prayer and these petitions I have made to him. May he always be merciful to the people of Israel and to their king, according to their daily needs.

[8:60] And so all the nations of the world will know that the Lord alone is God—there is no other.

[8:61] May you, his people, always be faithful to the Lord our God, obeying all his laws and commands as you do today.”

[8:62] Then King Solomon and all the people there offered sacrifices to the Lord.

[8:63] He sacrificed 22,000 head of cattle and 120,000 sheep as fellowship offerings. And so the king and all the people dedicated the Temple.

[8:64] That same day he also consecrated the central part of the courtyard, the area in front of the Temple, and then he offered there the sacrifices burned whole, the grain offerings, and the fat of the animals for the fellowship offerings. He did this because the bronze altar was too small for all these offerings.

[8:65] There at the Temple, Solomon and all the people of Israel celebrated the Festival of Shelters for seven days. There was a huge crowd of people from as far away as Hamath Pass in the north and the Egyptian border in the south.

[8:66] On the eighth day Solomon sent the people home. They all praised him and went home happy because of all the blessings that the Lord had given his servant David and his people Israel.

[9:1] After King Solomon had finished building the Temple and the palace and everything else he wanted to build,

[9:2] the Lord appeared to him again, as he had in Gibeon.

[9:3] The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer. I consecrate this Temple which you have built as the place where I shall be worshiped forever. I will watch over it and protect it for all time.

[9:4] If you will serve me in honesty and integrity, as your father David did, and if you obey my laws and do everything I have commanded you,

[9:5] I will keep the promise I made to your father David when I told him that Israel would always be ruled by his descendants.

[9:6] But if you or your descendants stop following me, disobey the laws and commands I have given you, and worship other gods,

[9:7] then I will remove my people Israel from the land that I have given them. I will also abandon this Temple which I have consecrated as the place where I am to be worshiped. People everywhere will ridicule Israel and treat her with contempt.

[9:8] This Temple will become a pile of ruins, and everyone who passes by will be shocked and amazed. ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this Temple?’ they will ask.

[9:9] People will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They gave their allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. That is why the Lord has brought this disaster on them.’”

[9:10] It took Solomon twenty years to build the Temple and his palace.

[9:11] King Hiram of Tyre had provided him with all the cedar and pine and with all the gold he wanted for this work. After it was finished, King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the region of Galilee.

[9:12] Hiram went to see them, and he did not like them.

[9:13] So he said to Solomon, “So these, my brother, are the towns you have given me!” For this reason the area is still called Cabul.

[9:14] Hiram had sent Solomon almost five tons of gold.

[9:15] King Solomon used forced labor to build the Temple and the palace, to fill in land on the east side of the city, and to build the city wall. He also used it to rebuild the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. (

[9:16] The king of Egypt had attacked Gezer and captured it, killing its inhabitants and setting fire to the city. Then he gave it as a wedding present to his daughter when she married Solomon,

[9:17] and Solomon rebuilt it.) Using his forced labor, Solomon also rebuilt Lower Beth Horon,

[9:18] Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness of Judah,

[9:19] the cities where his supplies were kept, the cities for his horses and chariots, and everything else he wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and elsewhere in his kingdom.

[9:22] Solomon did not make slaves of Israelites; they served as his soldiers, officers, commanders, chariot captains, and cavalry.

[9:23] There were 550 officials in charge of the forced labor working on Solomon's various building projects.

[9:24] Solomon filled in the land on the east side of the city, after his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt, had moved from David's City to the palace Solomon built for her.

[9:25] Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built to the Lord. He also burned incense to the Lord. And so he finished building the Temple.

[9:26] King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Eziongeber, which is near Elath on the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, in the land of Edom.

[9:27] King Hiram sent some experienced sailors from his fleet to serve with Solomon's men.

[9:28] They sailed to the land of Ophir and brought back to Solomon about sixteen tons of gold.

[10:1] The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's fame, and she traveled to Jerusalem to test him with difficult questions.

[10:2] She brought with her a large group of attendants, as well as camels loaded with spices, jewels, and a large amount of gold. When she and Solomon met, she asked him all the questions that she could think of.

[10:3] He answered them all; there was nothing too difficult for him to explain.

[10:4] The queen of Sheba heard Solomon's wisdom and saw the palace he had built.

[10:5] She saw the food that was served at his table, the living quarters for his officials, the organization of his palace staff and the uniforms they wore, the servants who waited on him at feasts, and the sacrifices he offered in the Temple. It left her breathless and amazed.

[10:6] She said to King Solomon, “What I heard in my own country about you and your wisdom is true!

[10:7] But I couldn't believe it until I had come and seen it all for myself. But I didn't hear even half of it; your wisdom and wealth are much greater than what I was told.

[10:8] How fortunate are your wives! And how fortunate your servants, who are always in your presence and are privileged to hear your wise sayings!

[10:9] Praise the Lord your God! He has shown how pleased he is with you by making you king of Israel. Because his love for Israel is eternal, he has made you their king so that you can maintain law and justice.”

[10:10] She presented to King Solomon the gifts she had brought: almost five tons of gold and a very large amount of spices and jewels. The amount of spices she gave him was by far the greatest that he ever received at any time. (

[10:11] Hiram's fleet, which had brought gold from Ophir, also brought from there a large amount of juniper wood and jewels.

[10:12] Solomon used the wood to build railings in the Temple and the palace, and also to make harps and lyres for the musicians. It was the finest juniper wood ever imported into Israel; none like it has ever been seen again.)

[10:13] King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba everything she asked for, besides all the other customary gifts that he had generously given her. Then she and her attendants returned to the land of Sheba.

[10:14] Every year King Solomon received over twenty-five tons of gold,

[10:15] in addition to the taxes paid by merchants, the profits from trade, and tribute paid by the Arabian kings and the governors of the Israelite districts.

[10:16] Solomon made two hundred large shields and had each one overlaid with almost fifteen pounds of gold.

[10:17] He also made three hundred smaller shields, overlaying each one of them with nearly four pounds of gold. He had all these shields placed in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon.

[10:18] He also had a large throne made. Part of it was covered with ivory and the rest of it was covered with the finest gold.

[10:21] All of Solomon's drinking cups were made of gold, and all the utensils in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. No silver was used, since it was not considered valuable in Solomon's day.

[10:22] He had a fleet of ocean-going ships sailing with Hiram's fleet. Every three years his fleet would return, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.

[10:23] King Solomon was richer and wiser than any other king,

[10:24] and the whole world wanted to come and listen to the wisdom that God had given him.

[10:25] Everyone who came brought him a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons, spices, horses, and mules. This continued year after year.

[10:26] Solomon built up a force of fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand cavalry horses. Some of them he kept in Jerusalem and the rest he stationed in various other cities.

[10:27] During his reign silver was as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar was as plentiful as ordinary sycamore in the foothills of Judah.

[10:28] The king's agents controlled the export of horses from Musri and Cilicia,

[10:29] and the export of chariots from Egypt. They supplied the Hittite and Syrian kings with horses and chariots, selling chariots for 600 pieces of silver each and horses for 150 each.

[11:1] Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides the daughter of the king of Egypt he married Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon.

[11:2] He married them even though the Lord had commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with these people, because they would cause the Israelites to give their loyalty to other gods.

[11:3] Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines. They made him turn away from God,

[11:4] and by the time he was old they had led him into the worship of foreign gods. He was not faithful to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.

[11:5] He worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, and Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

[11:6] He sinned against the Lord and was not true to him as his father David had been.

[11:7] On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon.

[11:8] He also built places of worship where all his foreign wives could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.

[11:11] and said to him, “Because you have deliberately broken your covenant with me and disobeyed my commands, I promise that I will take the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your officials.

[11:12] However, for the sake of your father David I will not do this in your lifetime, but during the reign of your son.

[11:13] And I will not take the whole kingdom away from him; instead, I will leave him one tribe for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city I have made my own.”

[11:14] So the Lord caused Hadad, of the royal family of Edom, to turn against Solomon.

[11:17] except Hadad and some of his father's Edomite servants, who escaped to Egypt. (At that time Hadad was just a child.)

[11:18] They left Midian and went to Paran, where some other men joined them. Then they traveled to Egypt and went to the king, who gave Hadad some land and a house and provided him with food.

[11:19] Hadad won the friendship of the king, and the king gave his sister-in-law, the sister of Queen Tahpenes, to Hadad in marriage.

[11:20] She bore him a son, Genubath, who was raised by the queen in the palace, where he lived with the king's sons.

[11:21] When the news reached Hadad in Egypt that David had died and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to the king, “Let me go back to my own country.”

[11:22] “Why?” the king asked. “Have I failed to give you something? Is that why you want to go back home?” “Just let me go,” Hadad answered the king. And he went back to his country. As king of Edom, Hadad was an evil, bitter enemy of Israel.

[11:23] God also caused Rezon son of Eliada to turn against Solomon. Rezon had fled from his master, King Hadadezer of Zobah,

[11:24] and had become the leader of a gang of outlaws. (This happened after David had defeated Hadadezer and had slaughtered his Syrian allies.) Rezon and his gang went and lived in Damascus, where his followers made him king of Syria.

[11:25] He was an enemy of Israel during the lifetime of Solomon.