1 Kings 9
9
Solomon again meets God
1Now once Solomon finished building the LORD’s temple, the royal palace, and everything else he wanted to accomplish, 2the LORD appeared to him a second time in the same way he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your cry to me. I have set apart this temple that you built, to put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. 4As for you, if you walk before me just as your father David did, with complete dedication and honesty, and if you do all that I have commanded, and keep my regulations and case laws, 5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, just as I promised your father David, ‘You will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ 6However, if you or your sons turn away from following me and don’t observe the commands and regulations that I gave you, and go to serve other gods, and worship them, 7then I will remove Israel from the land I gave them and I will reject the temple that I dedicated for my name. Israel will become a joke, insulted by everyone. 8Everyone who passes by this temple, so lofty now,#9.8 Or will become high; OL, Syr, Tg will become a ruin will be shocked and will whistle, wondering, Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and this temple? 9The answer will come: Because they deserted the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt’s land. They embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them. That is why the LORD brought all this disaster on them.”
Solomon’s buildings and prosperity
10It took twenty years for Solomon to build the two structures, the LORD’s temple and the royal palace. 11King Hiram of Tyre gave Solomon all the cedar, pinewood, and gold that he wanted. Then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the region of Galilee. 12Hiram went from Tyre to inspect the towns Solomon had given him. They didn’t seem adequate in his view. 13So Hiram remarked, “My brother, are these towns you’ve given me good for anything?” The cities are thus called the land of Cabul to this very day. 14But Hiram sent the king one hundred twenty gold kikkars, nevertheless.
15This is the story of the labor gang that King Solomon put together to build the LORD’s temple and his own palace, as well as the stepped structure, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer: (16Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, had attacked and captured Gezer, setting it on fire. He killed the Canaanites who lived in the city and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.) 17Solomon built Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, 18Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness (within the land), 19along with all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, as well as the cities used for storing chariots and cavalry and whatever he wanted to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout his kingdom. 20Any non-Israelite people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites— 21that is, the descendants of such people who were still in the land because the Israelites weren’t able to wipe them out—Solomon forced into the labor gangs that are still in existence today. 22However, Solomon didn’t force the Israelites to work as slaves; instead, they became warriors, his servants, his leaders, his officers, and those in charge of his chariots and cavalry.
23These were the chief officers over Solomon’s work: five hundred fifty had charge of the people who did the work. 24When Pharaoh’s daughter went up from David’s City to the palace he had built for her, Solomon built the stepped structure. 25Three times a year Solomon would offer entirely burned offerings and well-being sacrifices on the altar that he had built for the LORD. Along with this he would burn incense to the LORD. In this way, he completed the temple.#9.25 Heb uncertain 26King Solomon built a fleet near Eloth in Ezion-geber, on the coast of the Reed Sea#9.26 Traditionally Red Sea in the land of Edom. 27Hiram sent his expert sailors on the fleet along with Solomon’s workers. 28They went to Ophir for four hundred twenty kikkars of gold, which they brought back to King Solomon.
Currently Selected:
1 Kings 9: CEB
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.