1 Kings 11:1–8

Solomon Turns Away from God

11^*Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides the daughter of the king of Egypt he married Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon. ^2*He married them even though the Lord had commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with these people, because they would cause the Israelites to give their loyalty to other gods. ³Solomon married 700 princesses and also had 300 concubines. They made him turn away from God ⁴and by the time he was old they had led him into the worship of foreign gods. He was not faithful to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. ⁵He worshipped Astarte the goddess of Sidon, and Molech the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁶He sinned against the Lord and was not true to him as his father David had been. ⁷On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁸He also built places of worship where all his foreign wives could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.