The LORD's Covenant with Solomon

91 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; 2 The Lord came to him again in a vision, as he had done at Gibeon; 3 And the Lord said to him, Your prayers and your requests for grace have come to my ears: I have made holy this house which you have made, and I have put my name there for ever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times. 4 As for you, if you will go on your way before me, as David your father did, uprightly and with a true heart, doing what I have given you orders to do, keeping my laws and my decisions; 5 Then I will make the seat of your rule over Israel certain for ever, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be king in Israel. 6 But if you are turned from my ways, you or your children, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods and give them worship: 7 Then I will have Israel cut off from the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for myself, I will put away from before my eyes; and Israel will be a public example, and a word of shame among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder at it and make whistling sounds; and they will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house? 9 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.

Solomon's Further Activities

10 Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, 11 (Hiram, king of Tyre, had given Solomon cedar-trees and cypress-trees and gold, as much as he had need of,) King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee. 12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns which Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13 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. 14 And Hiram sent the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold.

15 Now, this was the way of Solomon's system of forced work for the building of the Lord's house and of the king's house, and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Megiddo and Gezer. ... 16 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, came and took Gezer, burning it down and putting to death the Canaanites living in the town, and he gave it for a bride-offering to his daughter, Solomon's wife. ... 17 ... and Solomon was the builder of Gezer and Beth-horon the lower, 18 And Baalath and Tamar in the waste land, in that land; 19 And all the store-towns and the towns which Solomon had for his war-carriages and for his horsemen, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. 20 As for the rest of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not children of Israel; 21 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. 22 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. 23 These were the chiefs of the overseers of Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, in authority over the people who did the work. 24 At that time Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her: then he made the Millo. 25 Three times in the year it was Solomon's way to give burned offerings and peace-offerings on the altar he had made to the Lord, causing his fire-offering to go up on the altar before the Lord. 26 And King Solomon made a sea-force of ships in Ezion-geber, by Eloth, on the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27 Hiram sent his servants, who were experienced seamen, in the sea-force with Solomon's men. 28 And they came to Ophir, where they got four hundred and twenty talents of gold, and took it back to King Solomon.

Solomon's Further Activities

81 Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the house of the Lord and a house for himself, 2 He took in hand the building up of the towns which Huram had given him, causing the children of Israel to make living-places for themselves there. 3 And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and overcame it. 4 And he put up the buildings of Tadmor in the waste land, and of all the store-towns in Hamath; 5 And of Beth-horon the higher and the lower, walled towns with walls and doorways and locks; 6 And of Baalath, and all the store-towns which Solomon had, and the towns where he kept his war-carriages and his horse men, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule. 7 As for all the rest of the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel: 8 Their men who were still living in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not put an end to, these Solomon put to forced work, as is done to this day; 9 But Solomon did not make use of the children of Israel as servants for his work; they were men of war, his chiefs and his captains, and captains of his war-carriages and his horsemen. 10 Now these were the chief men in authority whom King Solomon had: two hundred and fifty of them, in authority over the people. 11 Then Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her; for he said, I will not have my wife living in the house of David, king of Israel, because those places where the ark of the Lord has come are holy.

12 Then Solomon made burned offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had put up in front of the covered way, 13 Offering every day what had been ordered by Moses, on the Sabbaths and at the new moon and at the regular feasts three times a year, that is at the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tents. 14 And he gave the divisions of the priests their places for their work, as ordered by his father David, and to the Levites he gave their work of praise and waiting on the priests, to do what was needed day by day; and he gave the door-keepers their places in turn at every door; for so David, the man of God, had given orders. 15 All the orders given by the king to the priests and Levites, in connection with any business or stores, were done with care. 16 And all the work of Solomon was complete, from the day when he put the base of the Lord's house in position, till Solomon had come to the end of building the Lord's house. 17 Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth by the sea in the land of Edom. 18 And Huram sent him, by his servants, ships and experienced seamen, who went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir and came back with four hundred and fifty talents of gold, which they took to King Solomon.