Even as he was speaking, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest arrived. Adonijah said, “Come in. A worthy man like you must be bringing good news.”

“I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he said. “So be strong, act like a man,

But now, do not consider him innocent. You are a man of wisdom; you will know what to do to him. Bring his gray head down to the grave in blood.”

Now I have one request to make of you. Do not refuse me.” “You may make it,” she said.

“I have one small request to make of you,” she said. “Do not refuse me.” The king replied, “Make it, my mother; I will not refuse you.”

One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me.

The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.” But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.

The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”

He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

Solomon had twelve district governors over all Israel, who supplied provisions for the king and the royal household. Each one had to provide supplies for one month in the year.

Ben-Geber—in Ramoth Gilead (the settlements of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead were his, as well as the region of Argob in Bashan and its sixty large walled cities with bronze gate bars);

“So give orders that cedars of Lebanon be cut for me. My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians.”

He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip.

He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room.

For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary.

In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall.

And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.

The great courtyard was surrounded by a wall of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the Lord with its portico.

He erected the pillars at the portico of the temple. The pillar to the south he named Jakin and the one to the north Boaz.

Below the rim, gourds encircled it—ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.

On the inside of the stand there was an opening that had a circular frame one cubit deep. This opening was round, and with its basework it measured a cubit and a half. Around its opening there was engraving. The panels of the stands were square, not round.

Each stand had four handles, one on each corner, projecting from the stand.

He then made ten bronze basins, each holding forty baths and measuring four cubits across, one basin to go on each of the ten stands.