The Lord’s Response to Solomon

9 So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do. ² Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had done before at Gibeon. ³ The Lord said to him,

Solomon’s Agreement with Hiram

¹⁰ It took Solomon twenty years to build the Lord’s Temple and his own royal palace. At the end of that time, ¹¹ he gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyre. (Hiram had previously provided all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that Solomon had requested.) ¹² But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him, he was not at all pleased with them. ¹³ “What kind of towns are these, my brother?” he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, Hiram paid^[a] Solomon 9,000 pounds^[b] of gold.

Solomon’s Many Achievements

¹⁵ This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces,^[c] the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. ¹⁶ (Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down. He gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she married Solomon. ¹⁷ So Solomon rebuilt the city of Gezer.) He also built up the towns of Lower Beth-horon, ¹⁸ Baalath, and Tamar^[d] in the wilderness within his land. ¹⁹ He built towns as supply centers and constructed towns where his chariots and horses^[e] could be stationed. He built everything he desired in Jerusalem and Lebanon and throughout his entire realm.

²⁰ There were still some people living in the land who were not Israelites, including Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ²¹ These were descendants of the nations whom the people of Israel had not completely destroyed.^[f] So Solomon conscripted them as slaves, and they serve as forced laborers to this day. ²² But Solomon did not conscript any of the Israelites for forced labor. Instead, he assigned them to serve as fighting men, government officials, officers and captains in his army, commanders of his chariots, and charioteers. ²³ Solomon appointed 550 of them to supervise the people working on his various projects.

²⁴ Solomon moved his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter, from the City of David to the new palace he had built for her. Then he constructed the supporting terraces.

²⁵ Three times each year Solomon presented burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord. He also burned incense to the Lord. And so he finished the work of building the Temple.

²⁶ King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, a port near Elath^[g] in the land of Edom, along the shore of the Red Sea.^{[h] 27} Hiram sent experienced crews of sailors to sail the ships with Solomon’s men. ²⁸ They sailed to Ophir and brought back to Solomon some sixteen tons^[i] of gold.

Visit of the Queen of Sheba

10 When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, which brought honor to the name of the Lord,^[j] she came to test him with hard questions. ² She arrived in Jerusalem with a large group of attendants and a great caravan of camels loaded with spices, large quantities of gold, and precious jewels. When she met with Solomon, she talked with him about everything she had on her mind. ³ Solomon had answers for all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. ⁴ When the queen of Sheba realized how very wise Solomon was, and when she saw the palace he had built, ⁵ she was overwhelmed. She was also amazed at the food on his tables, the organization of his officials and their splendid clothing, the cup-bearers, and the burnt offerings Solomon made at the Temple of the Lord.

⁶ She exclaimed to the king, “Everything I heard in my country about your achievements^[k] and wisdom is true! ⁷ I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes. In fact, I had not heard the half of it! Your wisdom and prosperity are far beyond what I was told. ⁸ How happy your people^[l] must be! What a privilege for your officials to stand here day after day, listening to your wisdom! ⁹ Praise the Lord your God, who delights in you and has placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king so you can rule with justice and righteousness.”

¹⁰ Then she gave the king a gift of 9,000 pounds^[m] of gold, great quantities of spices, and precious jewels. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

¹¹ (In addition, Hiram’s ships brought gold from Ophir, and they also brought rich cargoes of red sandalwood^[n] and precious jewels. ¹² The king used the sandalwood to make railings for the Temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and to construct lyres and harps for the musicians. Never before or since has there been such a supply of sandalwood.)

¹³ King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba whatever she asked for, besides all the customary gifts he had so generously given. Then she and all her attendants returned to their own land.

Solomon’s Wealth and Splendor

¹⁴ Each year Solomon received about 25 tons^[o] of gold. ¹⁵ This did not include the additional revenue he received from merchants and traders, all the kings of Arabia, and the governors of the land.

¹⁶ King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold, each weighing more than fifteen pounds.^{[p] 17} He also made 300 smaller shields of hammered gold, each weighing nearly four pounds.^[q] The king placed these shields in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸ Then the king made a huge throne, decorated with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. ¹⁹ The throne had six steps and a rounded back. There were armrests on both sides of the seat, and the figure of a lion stood on each side of the throne. ²⁰ There were also twelve other lions, one standing on each end of the six steps. No other throne in all the world could be compared with it!

²¹ All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon’s day!

²² The king had a fleet of trading ships of Tarshish that sailed with Hiram’s fleet. Once every three years the ships returned, loaded with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.^[r]

²³ So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. ²⁴ People from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom God had given him. ²⁵ Year after year everyone who visited brought him gifts of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.

²⁶ Solomon built up a huge force of chariots and horses.^[s] He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses. He stationed some of them in the chariot cities and some near him in Jerusalem. ²⁷ The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stone. And valuable cedar timber was as common as the sycamore-fig trees that grow in the foothills of Judah.^{[t] 28} Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt^[u] and from Cilicia^[v]; the king’s traders acquired them from Cilicia at the standard price. ²⁹ At that time chariots from Egypt could be purchased for 600 pieces of silver,^[w] and horses for 150 pieces of silver.^[x] They were then exported to the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God’s message, they sent Peter and John there. ¹⁵ As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power. ¹⁹ “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”

²⁰ But Peter replied, “May your money be destroyed with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! ²¹ You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right with God. ²² Repent of your wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive your evil thoughts, ²³ for I can see that you are full of bitter jealousy and are held captive by sin.”

²⁴ “Pray to the Lord for me,” Simon exclaimed, “that these terrible things you’ve said won’t happen to me!”

²⁵ After testifying and preaching the word of the Lord in Samaria, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem. And they stopped in many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the Good News.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

²⁶ As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south^[a] down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷ So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.

²⁹ The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”

³⁰ Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

³¹ The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.

³² The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” ³⁵ So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.

³⁶ As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?”^{[c] 38} He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. He preached the Good News there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea.

Psalm 130

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.