1 Kings 8-10

1 Kings 8

¹Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' [houses] of the children of Israel, to king Solomon in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of the city of David, which is Zion.

²All the men of Israel assembled themselves to king Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.

³All the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark.

⁴They brought up the ark of Yahweh, and the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent; even these did the priests and the Levites bring up.

⁵King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who were assembled to him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and cattle, that could not be counted nor numbered for multitude.

⁶The priests brought in the ark of the covenant of Yahweh to its place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim.

⁷For the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its poles above.

⁸The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place before the oracle; but they were not seen outside: and there they are to this day.

⁹There was nothing in the ark except the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when Yahweh made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁰It came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of Yahweh,

¹¹so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of Yahweh filled the house of Yahweh.

¹²Then Solomon said, "Yahweh has said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.

¹³I have surely built you a house of habitation, a place for you to dwell in forever."

¹⁴The king turned his face about, and blessed all the assembly of Israel: and all the assembly of Israel stood.

¹⁵He said, "Blessed is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David your father, and has with his hand fulfilled it, saying,

¹⁶'Since the day that I brought forth my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house, that my name might be there; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.'

¹⁷"Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

¹⁸But Yahweh said to David my father, 'Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.

¹⁹Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come forth out of your body, he shall build the house for my name.'

²⁰Yahweh has established his word that he spoke; for I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised, and have built the house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel.

²¹There I have set a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of Yahweh, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt."

²²Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven;

²³and he said, "Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart;

²⁴who have kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day.

²⁵Now therefore, may Yahweh, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, 'There shall not fail you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.'

²⁶"Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father.

²⁷But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can't contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

²⁸Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant, and for his supplication, Yahweh my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day;

²⁹that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, 'My name shall be there;' to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place.

³⁰Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.

³¹"If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swear before your altar in this house;

³²then hear in heaven, and do, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.

³³"When your people Israel are struck down before the enemy, because they have sinned against you; if they turn again to you, and confess your name, and pray and make supplication to you in this house:

³⁴then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.

³⁵"When the sky is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess your name, and turn from their sin, when you afflict them:

³⁶then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land, which you have given to your people for an inheritance.

³⁷"If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is;

³⁸whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

³⁹then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and render to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know; (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men;)

⁴⁰that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.

⁴¹"Moreover concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he shall come out of a far country for your name's sake

⁴²(for they shall hear of your great name, and of your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm); when he shall come and pray toward this house;

⁴³hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.

⁴⁴"If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to Yahweh toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name;

⁴⁵then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

⁴⁶If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn't sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;

⁴⁷yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;'

⁴⁸if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built for your name:

⁴⁹then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause;

⁵⁰and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them

⁵¹(for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron);

⁵²that your eyes may be open to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you.

⁵³For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh."

⁵⁴It was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth toward heaven.

⁵⁵He stood, and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying,

⁵⁶"Blessed be Yahweh, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. There has not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by Moses his servant.

⁵⁷May Yahweh our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. Let him not leave us, nor forsake us;

⁵⁸that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers.

⁵⁹Let these my words, with which I have made supplication before Yahweh, be near to Yahweh our God day and night, that he may maintain the cause of his servant, and the cause of his people Israel, as every day shall require;

⁶⁰that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh, he is God. There is none else.

⁶¹"Let your heart therefore be perfect with Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day."

⁶²The king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before Yahweh.

⁶³Solomon offered for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered to Yahweh, two and twenty thousand head of cattle, and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of Yahweh.

⁶⁴The same day did the king make the middle of the court holy that was before the house of Yahweh; for there he offered the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar that was before Yahweh was too little to receive the burnt offering, and the meal offering, and the fat of the peace offerings.

⁶⁵So Solomon held the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt, before Yahweh our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days.

⁶⁶On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that Yahweh had shown to David his servant, and to Israel his people.

1 Kings 9

¹It happened, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of Yahweh, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do,

²that Yahweh appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

³Yahweh said to him, "I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

⁴As for you, 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 ordinances;

⁵then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, according as I promised to David your father, saying, 'There shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel.'

⁶But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

⁷then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

⁸Though this house is so high, yet shall everyone who passes by it be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, 'Why has Yahweh done thus to this land, and to this house?'

⁹and they shall answer, 'Because they forsook Yahweh their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold of other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore Yahweh has brought all this evil on them.'"

¹⁰It happened at the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king's house

¹¹(now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and fir trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), that then king Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

¹²Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they didn't please him.

¹³He said, "What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?" He called them the land of Cabul to this day.

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

¹⁵This is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised, to build the house of Yahweh, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a portion to his daughter, Solomon's wife.

¹⁷Solomon built Gezer, and Beth Horon the lower,

¹⁸and Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land,

¹⁹and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

²⁰As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel;

²¹their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy, of them did Solomon raise a levy of bondservants to this day.

²²But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no bondservants; but they were the men of war, and his servants, and his princes, and his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.

²³These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work, five hundred fifty, who bore rule over the people who labored in the work.

²⁴But Pharaoh's daughter came up out of the city of David to her house which [Solomon] had built for her: then did he build Millo.

²⁵Three times a year did Solomon offer burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to Yahweh, burning incense therewith, [on the altar] that was before Yahweh. So he finished the house.

²⁶King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

²⁷Hiram sent in the navy his servants, sailors who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon.

²⁸They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon.

1 Kings 10

¹When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of Yahweh, she came to prove him with hard questions.

²She came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bore spices, and very much gold, and precious stones; and when she was come to Solomon, she talked with him of all that was in her heart.

³Solomon told her all her questions: there was not anything hidden from the king which he didn't tell her.

⁴When the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he had built,

⁵and the food of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their clothing, and his cup bearers, and his ascent by which he went up to the house of Yahweh; there was no more spirit in her.

⁶She said to the king, "It was a true report that I heard in my own land of your acts, and of your wisdom.

⁷However I didn't believe the words, until I came, and my eyes had seen it. Behold, the half was not told me! Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame which I heard.

⁸Happy are your men, happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you, who hear your wisdom.

⁹Blessed is Yahweh your God, who delighted in you, to set you on the throne of Israel. Because Yahweh loved Israel forever, therefore made he you king, to do justice and righteousness."

¹⁰She gave the king one hundred twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones. There came no more such abundance of spices as these which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon.

¹¹The navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees and precious stones.

¹²The king made of the almug trees pillars for the house of Yahweh, and for the king's house, harps also and stringed instruments for the singers: there came no such almug trees, nor were seen, to this day.

¹³King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she asked, besides that which Solomon gave her of his royal bounty. So she turned, and went to her own land, she and her servants.

¹⁴Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty-six talents of gold,

¹⁵besides [that which] the traders [brought], and the traffic of the merchants, and of all the kings of the mixed people, and of the governors of the country.

¹⁶King Solomon made two hundred bucklers of beaten gold; six hundred [shekels] of gold went to one buckler.

¹⁷[he made] three hundred shields of beaten gold; three minas of gold went to one shield: and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the finest gold.

¹⁹There were six steps to the throne, and the top of the throne was round behind; and there were stays on either side by the place of the seat, and two lions standing beside the stays.

²⁰Twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other on the six steps: there was nothing like it made in any kingdom.

²¹All king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold: none were of silver; it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.

²²For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram: once every three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

²³So king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.

²⁴All the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

²⁵They brought every man his tribute, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and clothing, and armor, and spices, horses, and mules, a rate year by year.

²⁶Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen: and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, that he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

²⁷The king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland, for abundance.

²⁸The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king's merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price.

²⁹A chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred [shekels] of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty; and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means.