1 WHEN SOLOMON HAD fiNISHED the house of the LORD and the royal palace and all the plans for building on which he had set his heart, 2the LORD appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3The LORD said to him, 'I have heard the prayer and supplication which you have offered me; I have consecrated this house which you have built, to receive my Name for all time, and my eyes and my heart shall be fixed on it for ever. 4And if you, on your part, live in my sight as your father David lived, in integrity and uprightness, doing all I command you and observing my statutes and my judgements, 5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel for ever, as I promised your father David when I said, "You shall never want for a man upon the throne of Israel." 6But if you or your sons turn back from following me and do not observe my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, and if you go and serve other gods and prostrate yourselves before them, 7then I will cut off Israel from the land which I gave them; I will renounce this house which I have consecrated in honour of my name, and Israel shall become a byword and an object lesson among all peoples. 8And this house will become a ruin; every passer-by will be appalled and gasp at the sight of it; and they will ask, "Why has the LORD so treated this land and this house?" 9The answer will be, "Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their forefathers out of Egypt, and clung to other gods, prostrating themselves before them and serving them; that is why the LORD has brought this great evil on them." '
10 Solomon had taken twenty years to build the two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace. 11Hiram king of Tyre had supplied him with all the timber, both cedar and pine, and all the gold, that he desired, and King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12But when Hiram went from Tyre to inspect the cities which Solomon had given him, they did not satisfy him, 13and he said, 'What kind of cities are these you have given me, my brother?' And so he called them the Land of Cabul , the name they still bear. 14Hiram sent a hundred and twenty talents of gold to the king.
15This is the record of the forced labour which King Solomon conscripted to build the house of the LORD, his own palace, the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16Gezer had been attacked and captured by Pharaoh king of Egypt, who had burnt it to the ground, put its Canaanite inhabitants to death, and given it as a marriage gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife; 17and Solomon rebuilt it. He also built Lower Beth-horon, 18Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, 19as well as all his store-cities, and the towns where he quartered his chariots and horses; and he carried out all his cherished plans for building in Jerusalem, in the Lebanon, and throughout his whole dominion. 20All the survivors of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who did not belong to Israel— 21that is their descendants who survived in the land, wherever the Israelites had been unable to annihilate them—were employed by Solomon on perpetual forced labour, as they still are. 22But Solomon put none of the Israelites to forced labour; they were his fighting men , his captains and lieutenants, and the commanders of his chariots and of his cavalry. 23The number of officers in charge of the foremen over Solomon's work was five hundred and fifty; these superintended the people engaged on the work.
24Then Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the City of David to her own house which he had built for her; later on he built the Millo.
25Three times a year Solomon used to offer whole-offerings and shared-offerings on the altar which he had built to the LORD, making smoke-offerings before the LORD. So he completed the house.
26King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea , in Edorn. 27Hiram sent men of his own to serve with the fleet, experienced seamen, to work with Solomon's men; 28and they went to Ophir and brought back four hundred and twenty talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
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