The Lord’s Response
1 When Solomon finished building the temple of theLord,the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do,
2 theLordappeared to Solomon a second time just as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.
3 TheLordsaid to him:
I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before Me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put My name there forever;My eyes and My heart will be there at all times.
4 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,
5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.
6 If you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep My commands — My statutes that I have set before you — and if you go and serve other gods and worship them,
7 I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them,and I will rejectthe temple I have sanctified for My name.Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.
8 Though this temple is now exalted,everyone who passes by will be appalled and will mock.They will say: Why did theLorddo this to this land and this temple?
9 Then they will say: Because they abandoned theLordtheir God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and worshiped and served them. Because of this, theLordbrought all this ruin on them.
King Hiram’s 20 Towns
10 At the end of 20 years during which Solomon had built the two houses, theLord’s temple and the royal palace—
11 Hiram king of Tyrehaving supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and goldfor his every wish— King Solomon gave Hiram 20 towns in the land of Galilee.
12 So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.
13 So he said, “What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother? ” So he called them the Land of Cabul,as they are still called today.
14 Now Hiram had sent the king 9,000 poundsof gold.
Solomon’s Forced Labor
15 This is the account of the forced laborthat King Solomon had imposed to build theLord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces,the wall of Jerusalem,and Hazor,Megiddo,and Gezer.
16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it down, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.
17 Then Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon,
18 Baalath,Tamarin the Wilderness of Judah,
19 all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities,the cavalry cities,and whatever Solomon desired to buildin Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.
20 As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites —
21 their descendants who remained in the land after them, those whom the Israelites were unable to completely destroy— Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is this way until today.
22 But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery;they were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry.
23 These were the deputieswho were over Solomon’s work: 550 who ruled over the people doing the work.
Solomon’s Other Activities
24 Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of Davidto the house that Solomon had built for her;he then built the terraces.
25 Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for theLord, and he burned incense with them in theLord’s presence.So he completed the temple.
26 King Solomon put together a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber,which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.
27 With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced seamen, along with Solomon’s servants.
28 They went to Ophirand acquired gold there — 16 tons— and delivered it to Solomon.
—https://api-cdn.youversionapi.com/audio-bible-youversionapi/17/32k/1KI/9-0b9aaf6db0776a067ea76479c7e28458.mp3?version_id=72—