¹King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter. He loved Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon. ²They came from the nations about which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “Never intermarry with them. They will surely tempt you to follow their gods.” But Solomon was obsessed with their love. ³He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 wives who were concubines.^a⁴In his old age, his wives tempted him to follow other gods. He was no longer committed to the Lord his God as his father David had been. ⁵Solomon followed Astarte (the goddess of the Sidonians) and Milcom (the disgusting idol of the Ammonites). ⁶So Solomon did what the Lord considered evil. He did not wholeheartedly follow the Lord as his father David had done. ⁷Then Solomon built an illegal worship site on the hill east of Jerusalem for Chemosh (the disgusting idol of Moab) and for Molech (the disgusting idol of the Ammonites). ⁸He did these things for each of his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.

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Footnotes

a 11:3 A concubine is considered a wife except she has fewer rights under the law.