Then King Solomon said to Abiathar the priest, “I should kill you, but I will let you go back to your home in Anathoth. I will not kill you now because you helped carry the Holy Box of the Lord God while marching with my father David. And I know that you shared in the hard times with my father.”

Lord my God, you have made me the king in my father’s place, but I am like a small child. I don’t have the wisdom I need to do what I must do.

“You remember that my father, King David, had to fight many wars all around him. So he was never able to build a temple to honor the Lord his God. King David was waiting until the Lord allowed him to defeat all his enemies.

“The Lord made a promise to my father David. He said, ‘I will make your son king after you, and he will build a temple to honor me.’ Now, I plan to build that temple to honor the Lord my God.

He prayed this long prayer to the Lord: “The Lord, the God of Israel, is great. He has done what he promised my father David. He told my father,

“My father David wanted very much to build a temple to honor the Lord, the God of Israel.

“So the Lord has kept his promises. I am the king now in place of my father David. I rule the people of Israel as the Lord promised. And I have built the Temple for the Lord, the God of Israel.

Now, Lord, God of Israel, keep the other promises you made to your servant David, my father. You said, ‘David, if your sons carefully obey me as you did, you will always have someone from your family ruling the people of Israel.’

Again, God of Israel, I ask you to keep the promise you made to your servant, my father David.

When Solomon was old, his wives caused him to follow other gods, so he did not follow the Lord completely as his father David did.

I will take the kingdom from Solomon because he stopped following me and began worshiping Ashtoreth, the goddess of Sidon; Chemosh, the god of Moab; and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. Solomon stopped following my ways and doing what I say is right. He does not obey my laws and commands as his father David did.

The old prophet said, “Which way did he go when he left?” So the sons showed their father which road the man of God from Judah had taken.

He did all the same sins that his father before him had done. Abijah was not faithful to the Lord his God. In this way he was not like his grandfather, David.

Asa and his father had given some special gifts to God. Asa put these gifts of gold, silver, and other things in the Lord’s Temple.

Elijah answered, “I have not made trouble for Israel. You and your father’s family caused all the problems when you stopped obeying the Lord’s commands and began following the false gods.

Ahaziah served the false god Baal and worshiped him, just as his father did before him. He did all the things that his father did to make the Lord, the God of Israel, angry.