FIRST KINGS

 

1 Kings Chapter 9

1 ¶ After 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 the request, that you have made before me: I have consecrated this house, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

4 And 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 judgments:

5 Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, You will not fail to have a man upon the throne of Israel.

6 But if you or your children turn away from following me, and will not keep my commandments and the 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 I have given them; and this house, which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast from my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all people:

8 And everyone who passes by this house, which is now exalted, shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and shall say, Why has the LORD done this to this land, and to this house?

9 And they will answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: that is why the LORD brought all this evil upon them.

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 (For which Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with all the gold he desired,) king Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee.

12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him; he was not pleased with them.

13 And he said, What are these towns that you have given me worth, my brother? So they are called the worthless land to this day.

14 For Hiram had sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.

15 ¶ Now this is the account of the draft which king Solomon raised; to build the house of the LORD, his own house, Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

16 For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burned it with fire, and killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

17 So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, and lower Bethhoron,

18 And Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, in the land of Judah,

19 And all the cities of stores that Solomon had, cities for his chariots, cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land under his dominion.

20 And all the people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel,

21 Their descendants who remained in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able to utterly destroy, upon these Solomon levied a tribute of forced labor to this day.

22 But Solomon did not make any slaves of the children of Israel: instead they were men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and commanders of his chariots, and his horsemen.

23 These were the chief officers over Solomon’s work, five hundred and fifty, who had charge over the people who did the work.

24 But Pharaoh’s daughter moved up out of the city of David to her own house which Solomon had built for her: then he built the terraces.

25 And three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the LORD, and he burned incense on the altar that was before the LORD. So he finished the house.

26 And king Solomon built a fleet of ships at Eziongeber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.

27 And Hiram sent with the fleet his servants, seamen who had knowledge of the sea, along with Solomon’s servants.

28 And they went to Ophir, and brought four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there, and took it to king Solomon.