1 Kings 9

God’s Second Appearance to Solomon

9And ^ait came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord ^band the king’s house, and ^call Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do, ²that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time, ^das He had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³And the Lord said to him: ^e“I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built ^fto put My name there forever, ^gand My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. ⁴Now if you ^hwalk before Me ⁱas your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you ^jkeep My statutes and My judgments, ⁵then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, ^kas I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’ ^6lBut if you or your sons at all ¹turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, ^7mthen I will ²cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated ⁿfor My name I will cast out of My sight. ^oIsrael will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸And as for ^pthis house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, ^q‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ⁹Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore the Lord has brought all this ^rcalamity on them.’ ”

Solomon and Hiram Exchange Gifts

¹⁰Now ^sit happened at the end of twenty years, when Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house ^11t(Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress and gold, as much as he desired), that King Solomon then gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹²Then Hiram went from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, but they did not please him. ¹³So he said, “What kind of cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” ^uAnd he called them the land of ³Cabul, as they are to this day. ¹⁴Then Hiram sent the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.

Solomon’s Additional Achievements

¹⁵And this is the reason for ^vthe labor force which King Solomon raised: to build the house of the Lord, his own house, ⁴the ^wMillo, the wall of Jerusalem, ^xHazor, ^yMegiddo, and ^zGezer. ¹⁶(Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and taken Gezer and burned it with fire, ^ahad killed the Canaanites who dwelt in the city, and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.) ¹⁷And Solomon built Gezer, Lower ^bBeth Horon, ^18cBaalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, ¹⁹all the storage cities that Solomon had, cities for ^dhis chariots and cities for his ^ecavalry, and whatever Solomon ^fdesired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

^20gAll the people who were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel—²¹that is, their descendants ^hwho were left in the land after them, ⁱwhom the children of Israel had not been able to destroy completely—^jfrom these Solomon raised ^kforced labor, as it is to this day. ²²But of the children of Israel Solomon ^lmade no forced laborers, because they were men of war and his servants: his officers, his captains, commanders of his chariots, and his cavalry.

²³Others were chiefs of the officials who were over Solomon’s work: ^mfive hundred and fifty, who ruled over the people who did the work.

²⁴But ⁿPharaoh’s daughter came up from the City of David to ^oher house which ⁵Solomon had built for her. ^pThen he built the Millo.

^25qNow three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he had built for the Lord, and he burned incense with them on the altar that was before the Lord. So he finished the temple.

^26rKing Solomon also built a fleet of ships at ^sEzion Geber, which is near ⁶Elath on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ^27tThen Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, seamen who knew the sea, to work with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸And they went to ^uOphir, and acquired four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there, and brought it to King Solomon.