¹¹King Solomon gave 20 towns in Galilee to Hiram. That’s because Hiram had provided him with all of the cedar and pine logs he wanted. He had also provided him with all of the gold he wanted. Hiram was king of Tyre.

¹²Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him. But he wasn’t pleased with them. ¹³“My friend,” he asked, “what have you given me? What kind of towns are these?” So he called them the Land of Cabul. And that’s what they are still called to this very day. ¹⁴Hiram had sent four and a half tons of gold to Solomon.

¹⁵King Solomon forced people to work hard for him. Here is a record of what they did. They built the Lord’s temple and Solomon’s palace. They filled in the low places. They rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem. They built up Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked Gezer and captured it. He had set it on fire. He had killed the Canaanites who lived there. Then he had given Gezer as a wedding gift to his daughter. She was Solomon’s wife.

¹⁷Solomon rebuilt Gezer. He built up Lower Beth Horon ¹⁸and Baalath. He built up Tadmor in the desert. All of those towns were in his land. ¹⁹He built up all of the cities where he could store things. He also built up the towns for his chariots and horses. He built anything he wanted to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon and all of the territory he ruled over.

²⁰There were still many people left in the land who weren’t Israelites. They included Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ²¹They were children of the people who had lived in the land before the Israelites came. Those people had been set apart to the Lord in a special way to be destroyed. But the Israelites hadn’t been able to kill all of them. Solomon had forced them to work very hard as his slaves. And they still work for Israel to this very day.

²²But Solomon didn’t force any of the men of Israel to work as his slaves. Instead, some were his fighting men. Others were his government officials, his officers and his captains. Others were commanders of his chariots and chariot drivers. ²³Still others were the chief officials who were in charge of his projects. There were 550 officials in charge of those who did the work.

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