1 Kings 9

The Lord’s Response

9When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, ^lthe royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do, ^m2the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time just as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. ⁿ³The Lord said to him:

I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before Me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put My name there forever; ^oMy eyes and My heart will be there at all times. ^p

⁴As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances, ^q5I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel. ^r

⁶If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands—My statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and worship them, ^s7I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, ^tand I will reject ^uthe temple I have sanctified for My name. ^vIsrael will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples. ^w8Though this temple is now exalted, ^xeveryone who passes by will be appalled and will mock. ^yThey will say: Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple? ^z9Then they will say: Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them. ^a

King Hiram’s 20 Towns

¹⁰At the end of 20 years during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Lord’s temple and the royal palace ^b— ¹¹Hiram king of Tyre ^chaving supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold ^dfor his every wish ^e—King Solomon gave Hiram 20 towns in the land of Galilee. ¹²So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them. ¹³So he said, “What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother?” So he called them the Land of Cabul, ^fas they are still called today. ^g14Now Hiram had sent the king 9,000 pounds ^hof gold. ⁱ

Solomon’s Forced Labor

¹⁵This is the account of the forced labor ^jthat King Solomon had imposed to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, ^kthe wall of Jerusalem, ^land Hazor, ^mMegiddo, ⁿand Gezer. ^o16Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it down, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ^p17Then Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, ^q18Baalath, ^rTamar ^stin the Wilderness of Judah, ¹⁹all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities, ^uthe cavalry cities, ^vand whatever Solomon desired to build ^win Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.

²⁰As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites— ²¹their descendants who remained in the land after them, those whom the Israelites were unable to completely destroy ^x—Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is this way until today. ^y22But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery; ^zthey were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry. ²³These were the deputies ^awho were over Solomon’s work: 550 who ruled over the people doing the work. ^b

Solomon’s Other Activities

²⁴Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David ^cto the house that Solomon had built for her; ^dhe then built the terraces. ^e

²⁵Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, and he burned incense with them in the Lord’s presence. ^fSo he completed the temple. ^g

²⁶King Solomon put together a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, ^hwhich is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. ²⁷With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced seamen, along with Solomon’s servants. ²⁸They went to Ophir ⁱand acquired gold there—16 tons ^j—and delivered it to Solomon. ^k