1And when Solomon had finished building the Temple of the LORD, and his royal palace, and had achieved all that Solomon desired to do, 2The LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3And the LORD said, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this Temple, which you have built, to put My name there forever; and My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually. 4And if you will walk before Me, as David, your father, walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances, 5Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom upon Israel forever, as I promised David, your father: ‘There shall not fail you a man upon the throne of Israel’. 6But if you shall at all turn from following Me, you or your children, and will not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go, serve and worship other gods, 7Then I will cut Israel off from the land which I have given them, and this Temple, which I have hallowed for My name, I will cast out of My sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people. 8And at this Temple, which is high, everyone who passes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and shall say, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land, and to this Temple?’ 9And they shall answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God, Who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have followed after, worshipped, and served other gods; therefore the LORD has brought all this trouble upon them.’” 10And at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built these two buildings - the Temple of the LORD, and the king's palace - 11King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee, because Hiram, king of Tyre, had furnished Solomon with cedar and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire. 12And then Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, and he was not pleased with them. 13And he said, “What kinds of cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” And he called them the “land of Cabul” unto this day. 14And Hiram sent 120 talents of gold (about 8,000 pounds) to Solomon. 15And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted, to build the Temple of the LORD, his own house, Millo (a terraced structure), the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16(Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked, captured, and burned Gezer, killing its Canaanite inhabitants, and gave the city to his daughter, Solomon's wife, as a wedding gift. 17And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He also built the towns of Lower Beth-horon, 18Baalath, and Tamar in the desert, in the land of Judah, 19As well as all the cities that Solomon had, for storage, for his chariots, and his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his domain. 20The people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not descendants of Israel, 21Solomon conscripted for forced labor these inhabitants who remained in the land – those that the children of Israel did not utterly destroy; and so they are there unto this day (the day of that writing). 22But Solomon did not make slaves of the Israelites; but instead, they were his soldiers, servants, leaders, officers, commanders of his chariots, and his horsemen. 23They were also the officers that were over Solomon's projects - five hundred fifty officials - who oversaw those who did the work. 24But Pharaoh's daughter came up from the city of David to her house, which Solomon had built for her; then he built the supporting terraces of Millo. 25And three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built unto the LORD, and he burned incense upon the altar that was before the LORD. And so, he finished the Temple of the LORD. 26And King Solomon also built a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27And Hiram sent his men, skillful seamen, to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. 28And they sailed to Ophir, and brought gold from there - four hundred twenty talents (about 27,700 pounds) - back to King Solomon. Reader-Friendly Bible: Purple Letter Edition © 2024 by Jim Musser. Used by Permission. All rights Reserved. Bible Hub |