1 Kings
9
- When Solomon had finished building the temple
of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do,
- the LORD appeared to him a second time,
as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.
- The LORD said to him: "I have heard
the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple,
which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart
will always be there.
- "As for you, if you walk before me
in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all
I command and observe my decrees and laws,
- I will establish your royal throne over
Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never
fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.'
- "But if you or your sons turn away
from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go
off to serve other gods and worship them,
- then I will cut off Israel from the land
I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.
Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples.
- And though this temple is now imposing,
all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, 'Why has the LORD
done such a thing to this land and to this temple ?'
- People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken
the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced
other gods, worshiping and serving them -- that is why the LORD brought all
this disaster on them.'"
- At the end of twenty years, during which
Solomon built these two buildings -- the temple of the LORD and the royal
palace --
- King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee
to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and
pine and gold he wanted.
- But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the
towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them.
- "What kind of towns are these you have
given me, my brother?" he asked. And he called them the Land of Cabul,
a name they have to this day.
- Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents
of gold.
- Here is the account of the forced labor
King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD'S temple, his own palace, the supporting
terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.
- (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and
captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants
and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife.
- And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up
Lower Beth Horon,
- Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within
his land,
- as well as all his store cities and the
towns for his chariots and for his horses -- whatever he desired to build
in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.
- All the people left from the Amorites, Hittites,
Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites),
- that is, their descendants remaining in
the land, whom the Israelites could not exterminate -- these Solomon conscripted
for his slave labor force, as it is to this day.
- But Solomon did not make slaves of any of
the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his
officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers.
- They were also the chief officials in charge
of Solomon's projects -- 550 officials supervising the men who did the work.
- After Pharaoh's daughter had come up from
the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed
the supporting terraces.
- Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt
offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the LORD,
burning incense before the LORD along with them, and so fulfilled the temple
obligations.
- King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber,
which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.
- And Hiram sent his men--sailors who knew
the sea -- to serve in the fleet with Solomon's men.
- They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420
talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
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