Solomon builds more towns

8 Solomon was building the Lord's temple and the king's palace for 20 years. ² After that, he built again the towns that King Hiram had given to him. He sent Israelites to live in them.

³ Then Solomon went to Hamath-Zobah and he took it for Israel. ⁴ He made the buildings in Tadmor strong again. That was a town in the wilderness. He did the same thing for the towns that he had built in Hamath region to store things. ⁵ He built again Higher Beth-Horon and Lower Beth-Horon. He made those cities strong. He built walls around them with strong gates. ⁶ He also made Baalath strong, and all his cities where he stored things, as well as all the cities where he kept his chariots and horses. He built everything that he wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and everywhere in his kingdom.

⁷ Solomon only made people who were not Israelites do the hard work for him. They were Canaanite people who still lived in the land after the Israelites took it for themselves. They were Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁸ The Israelites had not been able to destroy all of these people, so their descendants remained in the land. So Solomon made them do hard work as his slaves. They are still slaves of the Israelites today. ⁹ But Solomon did not cause any Israelites to do the hard work as slaves. Instead, they became his soldiers and army officers. Some of the soldiers drove chariots and some were leaders of the chariot drivers. ¹⁰ King Solomon had 250 Israelite officers who had authority over the workers.

Solomon gives a house to Pharaoh's daughter

¹¹ Solomon had built a palace for his wife, Pharaoh's daughter. When the palace was ready, he brought her up there from the City of David. He said, ‘My wife must not live in the palace of David, king of Israel. The Lord's Covenant Box has been there, so it is a holy place.’

The work of the priests and Levites

¹² Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar that he had built. The altar was outside the entrance of the temple. ¹³ He offered the sacrifices every day that Moses had told them to do. There were rules about sacrifices on Sabbath days, on festivals for each new moon and on the three special festivals each year. Those were the Festival of Flat Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Huts.^{[a] 14} Solomon gave jobs to each group of priests as his father David had commanded. He also gave the Levites their jobs to do each day. They led the music to worship God and they helped the priests with their work. He gave each group of guards a job to watch the gates of the temple. He told them all to do this in the way that God's servant David had commanded. ¹⁵ All the priests and the Levites were careful to do exactly what the king had commanded. That included the rooms where they stored valuable things.

¹⁶ Solomon's workers did all the jobs that he told them to do. They started on the day when they built the foundation of the Lord's temple. They continued to work until they had finished everything. In that way, work on the Lord's temple was complete.

¹⁷ Then Solomon went to Ezion-Geber and to Elath. They were towns on the coast of the sea, in the land of Edom. ¹⁸ King Hiram had sailors who knew how to sail ships on the sea. He sent some of these men to work with Solomon's sailors. They sailed to Ophir and they brought back about 15 tons of gold. They gave it to King Solomon.