Chapter 9

The Lord’s Promise to Solomon.¹ When Solomon had completed the construction of the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, Solomon had accomplished all that he desired to do.

² The Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you made before me, and I have consecrated the temple that you built by establishing my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. ⁴ And as for you, if you walk before me as David, your father, walked, in integrity of heart and righteousness, and you do all that I command you, and you observe my statutes and my ordinances, ⁵ then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever just as I promised David, your father, when I said, ‘You will not fail to have one who will reign upon the throne of Israel.’

⁶ “But if your children turn away from me, and they do not follow me nor do they observe my commandments or my statutes that I have set before you, and they go off to serve other gods, and they worship them, ⁷ then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them, and I will reject from my sight this temple that I have consecrated for my name. Israel will become a byword and a laughingstock among all the nations. ⁸ Although this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss at it, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done this to this land and to this temple?’ ⁹ Then they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, their God, who brought their fathers forth from the land of Egypt. They have embraced other gods, and they have worshiped them and served them. This is why the Lord has brought all of these disasters upon them.’ ”

¹⁰ Taking Account. At the end of twenty years during which Solomon built two buildings, the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, ¹¹ King Solomon gave twenty towns that were in the land of Galilee to King Hiram, the king of Tyre, who had provided Solomon with all the cedar wood, fir, and gold that he desired. ¹² When King Hiram traveled out from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. ¹³ He said, “What kind of cities have you given me, my brother?” He has called the land Cabul up to the present day. ¹⁴ Now Hiram had sent the king one hundred twenty talents of gold.^[a]

¹⁵ This is an account of the forced labor that King Solomon raised in order to build the temple of the Lord, his own palace, Millo, the walls of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. ¹⁶ (Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had gone up and captured Gezer. He burned it down and killed the Canaanites who were living there. He gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷ Solomon then rebuilt Gezer.) He also built lower Beth-horon, ¹⁸ Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, all of which were within his land. ¹⁹ Solomon also had storage cities for provisions, cities for his chariots, and cities for his horses. Solomon built whatever he desired in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and all the land that he ruled.

²⁰ All of the people who survived from among the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (for these people were not Israelites), ²¹ that is, their descendants who remained in the land (for the Israelites had not been able to wipe them out) were conscripted by Solomon to serve as slave labor, as is still true today.

²² Solomon did not reduce the Israelites to slavery. They were his fighting men, his officials, his princes, his captains, the commanders of his chariots, and his charioteers. ²³ They were also the chief officials who were in charge of Solomon’s work projects. There were five hundred and fifty of them, and they supervised the men who did the work. ²⁴ After Pharaoh’s daughter came up to the City of David, to the palace that he had built for her, he then built Millo.

²⁵ Three times a year^[b] Solomon offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar that he had built for the Lord. He also burnt incense on the altar before the Lord, and so he fulfilled his temple duties. ²⁶ King Solomon built ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Elath on the Red Sea in the land of Edom. ²⁷ Hiram sent some of his men who were sailors, seafaring men who knew the sea, to sail with Solomon’s men. ²⁸ They sailed to Ophir^[c] and brought back and delivered to King Solomon four hundred and twenty talents of gold.