The LORD's Covenant with Solomon

9¹ When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house and all that Solomon desired to build, ² the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ And the Lord said to him, "I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before me; I have consecrated this house which you have built, and put my name there for ever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time. ⁴ And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, ⁵ then I will establish your royal throne over Israel for ever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'There shall not fail you a man upon the throne of Israel.' ⁶ But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, ⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸ And this house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, 'Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?' ⁹ Then they will say, 'Because they forsook the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this evil upon them.'"

Solomon's Further Activities

¹⁰ At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, ¹¹ and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹² But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, they did not please him. ¹³ Therefore he said, "What kind of cities are these which you have given me, my brother?" So they are called the land of Cabul to this day. ¹⁴ Hiram had sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.

¹⁵ And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megid'do and Gezer ¹⁶ (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire, and had slain the Canaanites who dwelt in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife; ¹⁷ so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-hor'on ¹⁸ and Ba'alath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, ¹⁹ and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ²⁰ All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites, who were not of the people of Israel-- ²¹ their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to destroy utterly--these Solomon made a forced levy of slaves, and so they are to this day. ²² But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves; they were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen. ²³ These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work: five hundred and fifty, who had charge of the people who carried on the work. ²⁴ But Pharaoh's daughter went up from the city of David to her own house which Solomon had built for her; then he built the Millo. ²⁵ Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built to the Lord, burning incense before the Lord. So he finished the house. ²⁶ King Solomon built a fleet of ships at E'zion-ge'ber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ²⁷ And Hiram sent with the fleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon; ²⁸ and they went to Ophir, and brought from there gold, to the amount of four hundred and twenty talents; and they brought it to King Solomon.

Solomon's Further Activities

8¹ At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house, ² Solomon rebuilt the cities which Huram had given to him, and settled the people of Israel in them. ³ And Solomon went to Ha'math-zo'bah, and took it. ⁴ He built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the store-cities which he built in Hamath. ⁵ He also built Upper Beth-hor'on and Lower Beth-hor'on, fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars, ⁶ and Ba'alath, and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ⁷ All the people who were left of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites, who were not of Israel, ⁸ from their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel had not destroyed--these Solomon made a forced levy and so they are to this day. ⁹ But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves for his work; they were soldiers, and his officers, the commanders of his chariots, and his horsemen. ¹⁰ And these were the chief officers of King Solomon, two hundred and fifty, who exercised authority over the people. ¹¹ Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the city of David to the house which he had built for her, for he said, "My wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel, for the places to which the ark of the Lord has come are holy."

¹² Then Solomon offered up burnt offerings to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord which he had built before the vestibule, ¹³ as the duty of each day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses for the sabbaths, the new moons, and the three annual feasts--the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles. ¹⁴ According to the ordinance of David his father, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their service, and the Levites for their offices of praise and ministry before the priests as the duty of each day required, and the gatekeepers in their divisions for the several gates; for so David the man of God had commanded. ¹⁵ And they did not turn aside from what the king had commanded the priests and Levites concerning any matter and concerning the treasuries. ¹⁶ Thus was accomplished all the work of Solomon from the day the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid until it was finished. So the house of the Lord was completed. ¹⁷ Then Solomon went to E'zion-ge'ber and Eloth on the shore of the sea, in the land of Edom. ¹⁸ And Huram sent him by his servants ships and servants familiar with the sea, and they went to Ophir together with the servants of Solomon, and fetched from there four hundred and fifty talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon.