1 Kings 9 — Legacy Standard Bible

Yahweh Appears to Solomon

9^aNow it happened when Solomon had completed building the house of Yahweh, and ^bthe king’s house, and ^call ¹that Solomon desired to do, ²that ^aYahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³And Yahweh said to him, “^aI have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have set apart as holy this house which you have built ^bby putting My name there forever, and ^cMy eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. ⁴“As for you, ^aif you will walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep My statutes and My judgments, ⁵then ^aI will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I ¹promised to your father David, saying, ‘You shall not have a man cut off from the throne of Israel.’

⁶“^aBut if you or your sons indeed turn away from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have given before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, ⁷^athen I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and ^bthe house which I have set apart as holy for My name, I will ¹cast out of My presence. So ^cIsrael will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸“And this house will become ¹^,^aa heap of ruins; everyone who passes by will feel desolate and hiss and say, ‘^bWhy has Yahweh done thus to this land and to this house?’ ⁹“And they will say, ‘^aBecause they forsook Yahweh their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and took hold of other gods and worshiped them and served them, therefore Yahweh has brought all this calamity on them.’”

Cities Given to Hiram

¹⁰^aNow it happened that ^bat the end of twenty years in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of Yahweh and the king’s house ¹¹(Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold according to all his desire), that King Solomon then gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹²So Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him, and they were not right in his eyes. ¹³And he said, “What are these cities which you have given me, my brother?” So ¹they were called the land of ²^,^aCabul to this day. ¹⁴^aAnd Hiram sent to the king ¹120 talents of gold.

Solomon Builds Cities and Ships

¹⁵Now this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon ^araised up to build the house of Yahweh, his own house, the ¹^,^bMillo, the wall of Jerusalem, ^cHazor, ^dMegiddo, and ^eGezer. ¹⁶For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and killed the ^aCanaanites who lived in the city, and had ^bgiven it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷So Solomon rebuilt Gezer and the lower ^aBeth-horon ¹⁸and ^aBaalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah, ¹⁹and all the storage cities which Solomon had, and ^athe cities for ¹his chariots, and the cities for ²^,^bhis horsemen, and ³^,^call that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land ⁴under his rule. ²⁰As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel, ²¹^anamely, their sons who were left after them in the land ^bwhom the sons of Israel were unable to devote to destruction, from ^cthem Solomon raised up ^dforced laborers to this day. ²²But Solomon ^adid not make slaves of the sons of Israel; for they were men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, his chariot commanders, and his horsemen.

²³These were the ¹^,^achief deputies who were over Solomon’s work, 550, ^bwho had dominion over the people doing the work.

²⁴As soon as ^aPharaoh’s daughter came up from the city of David to her house which Solomon had built for her, ^bthen he built the Millo.

²⁵And ^athree times in a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to Yahweh, burning incense with them on the altar which was before Yahweh. So he finished the house.

²⁶King Solomon also made a ^afleet of ships in ^bEzion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the ¹Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ²⁷^aAnd Hiram sent his servants with the fleet of ships, sailors who knew the sea, along with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸And they went to ^aOphir and took from there 420 talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon.