Solomon's Benediction

^54 (A)Now as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had ^(B)knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven. ⁵⁵ And he stood and ^(C)blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, ⁵⁶ “Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. ^(D)Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. ⁵⁷ The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. ^(E)May he not leave us or forsake us, ⁵⁸ that he may ^(F)incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. ⁵⁹ Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, ⁶⁰ that ^(G)all the peoples of the earth may know that ^(H)the Lord is God; there is no other. ^61 (I)Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

Solomon's Sacrifices

^62 (J)Then ^(K)the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. ⁶³ Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. ⁶⁴ The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord, for there he offered the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings, because ^(L)the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings.

⁶⁵ So Solomon held ^(M)the feast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from ^(N)Lebo-hamath to ^(O)the Brook of Egypt, before the Lord our God, seven days.^{[a] 66} On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people.

⁹ Then they will say, ‘Because ^(A)they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon's Other Acts

^10 (B)At the end of ^(C)twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, ¹¹ and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹² But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. ¹³ Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of ^(D)Cabul to this day. ¹⁴ Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents^[a] of gold.

¹⁵ And this is the account of ^(E)the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and ^(F)the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and ^(G)Hazor and ^(H)Megiddo and Gezer ¹⁶ (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed ^(I)the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to ^(J)his daughter, Solomon's wife; ¹⁷ so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and ^(K)Lower Beth-horon ¹⁸ and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,^{[b] 19} and all the store cities that Solomon had, and ^(L)the cities for his chariots, and the cities for ^(M)his horsemen, and whatever Solomon ^(N)desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ²⁰ All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel— ^21 (O)their descendants who were left after them in the land, ^(P)whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction^[c]—^(Q)these Solomon drafted to be ^(R)slaves, and so they are to this day. ²² But ^(S)of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen.

²³ These were the chief officers who were over Solomon's work: ^(T)550 ^(U)who had charge of the people who carried on the work.

²⁴ But ^(V)Pharaoh's daughter went up from the city of David to ^(W)her own house that Solomon had built for her. ^(X)Then he built ^(Y)the Millo.

²⁵ Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the Lord, making offerings with it^[d] before the Lord. So he finished the house.

²⁶ King Solomon built a fleet of ships at ^(Z)Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ²⁷ And Hiram sent ^(AA)with the fleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸ And they went to ^(AB)Ophir and brought from there gold, 420 talents, and they brought it to King Solomon.