1 Kings 9

1 Kings 9

The Lord ’s Response to Solomon

1So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord , as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do.

2Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had done before at Gibeon.

3The Lord said to him,

Solomon’s Agreement with Hiram

10It took Solomon twenty years to build the Lord ’s Temple and his own royal palace. At the end of that time,

11he 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.)

12But 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.

14Nevertheless, Hiram paid Solomon 9,000 pounds of gold.[#9:14a Or For Hiram had paid.; #9:14b Hebrew 120 talents [4,000 kilograms].]

Solomon’s Many Achievements

15This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord ’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.[#9:15 Hebrew the millo; also in 9:24. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.]

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.

17So Solomon rebuilt the city of Gezer.) He also built up the towns of Lower Beth-horon,

18Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness within his land.[#9:18 An alternate reading in the Masoretic Text reads Tadmor.]

19He built towns as supply centers and constructed towns where his chariots and horses could be stationed. He built everything he desired in Jerusalem and Lebanon and throughout his entire realm.[#9:19 Or and charioteers.]

20There were still some people living in the land who were not Israelites, including Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

21These were descendants of the nations whom the people of Israel had not completely destroyed. So Solomon conscripted them as slaves, and they serve as forced laborers to this day.[#9:21 The Hebrew term used here refers to the complete consecration of things or people to the , either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering.]

22But 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.

23Solomon appointed 550 of them to supervise the people working on his various projects.

24Solomon 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.

25Three 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.

26King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, a port near Elath in the land of Edom, along the shore of the Red Sea.[#9:26a As in Greek version (see also 2 Kgs 14:22; 16:6); Hebrew reads Eloth, a variant spelling of Elath.; #9:26b Hebrew sea of reeds.]

27Hiram sent experienced crews of sailors to sail the ships with Solomon’s men.

28They sailed to Ophir and brought back to Solomon some sixteen tons of gold.[#9:28 Hebrew 420 talents [14 metric tons].]

Holy Bible, New Living Translation Catholic Edition, copyright © 2016 by Tyndale House Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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