54When Solomon finished offering to the LORD all this prayer and supplication, he rose from where he had been kneeling, in front of the altar of the LORD, his hands spread out toward heaven. 55He stood, and in a loud voice blessed the whole congregation of Israel:
56“Praised be the LORD who has granted a haven to His people Israel, just as He promised; not a single word has failed of all the gracious promises that He made through His servant Moses. 57May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He never abandon or forsake us. 58May He incline our hearts to Him, that we may walk in all His ways and keep the commandments, the laws, and the rules, which He enjoined upon our fathers. 59And may these words of mine, which I have offered in supplication before the LORD, be close to the LORD our God day and night, that He may provide for His servant and for His people Israel, according to each day’s needs—60to the end that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD alone is God, there is no other. 61And may you be wholehearted with the LORD our God, to walk in His ways and keep His commandments, even as now.”
62The king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the LORD. 63Solomon offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep as sacrifices of wellbeing to the LORD. Thus the king and all the Israelites dedicated the House of the LORD. 64That day the king consecrated the center of the court that was in front of the House of the LORD. For it was there that he presented the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the fat parts of the offerings of well-being, because the bronze altar that was before the LORD was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the fat parts of the offerings of well-being.
65So Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assemblage, [coming] from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi of Egyptf—observed the Feasta at that time before the LORD our God, seven days and again seven days, fourteen days in all. 66On the eighth dayg he let the people go. They bade the king good-bye and went to their homes, joyful and glad of heart over all the goodness that the LORD had shown to His servant David and His people Israel.
9 When Solomon had finished building the House of the LORD and the royal palace and everything that Solomon had set his heart on constructing, 2the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3The LORD said to him, “I have heard the prayer and the supplication which you have offered to Me. I consecrate this House which you have built and I set My name there forever. My eyes and My heart shall ever be there. 4As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked before Me, wholeheartedly and with uprightness, doing all that I have commanded you [and] keeping My laws and My rules, 5then I will establish your throne of kingship over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, ‘Your line on the throne of Israel shall never end.’ 6[But] if you and your descendants turn away from Me and do not keep the commandments [and] the laws which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 7then I will sweepa Israel off the land which I gave them; I will rejectb the House which I have consecrated to My name; and Israel shall become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8And c-as for this House, once so exalted,-c everyone passing by it shall be appalled and shall hiss.d And when they ask, ‘Why did the LORD do thus to the land and to this House?’ 9they shall be told, ‘It is because they forsook the LORD their God who freed them from the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and worshiped them and served them; therefore the LORD has brought all this calamity upon them.’ ”
10At the end of the twenty yearse during which Solomon constructed the two buildings, the LORD’s House and the royal palace—11since King Hiram of Tyre had supplied Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that he required—King Solomon in turn gave Hiram twenty towns in the region of Galilee. 12But when Hiram came from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13“My brother,” he said, “what sort of towns are these you have given me?” So they were named the land of Cabul,f as is still the case. 14However, Hiram sent the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.
15This was the purpose of the forced labor which Solomon imposed: It was to build the House of the LORD, his own palace, the Millo,g and the wall of Jerusalem, and [to fortify] Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. (16Pharaoh king of Egypt had come up and captured Gezer; he destroyed it by fire, killed the Canaanites who dwelt in the town, and gave it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.) 17So Solomon fortified Gezer, lower Beth-horon, 18Baalith, and Tamarh in the wilderness, in the land [of Judah], 19and all of Solomon’s garrison towns, chariot towns, and cavalry towns—everything that Solomon set his heart on building in Jerusalem and in the Lebanon, and throughout the territory that he ruled. 20All the people that were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not of the Israelite stock—21those of their descendants who remained in the land and whom the Israelites were not able to annihilate—of these Solomon made a slave force, as is still the case. 22But he did not reduce any Israelites to slavery; they served, rather, as warriors and as his attendants, officials, and officers, and as commanders of his chariotry and cavalry.
23These were the prefects that were in charge of Solomon’s works and were foremen over the people engaged in the work, who numbered 550.i
24As soon as Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the City of David to the palace that he had built for her, he built the Millo.g
25Solomon used to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices of well-being three times a year on the altar that he had built for the LORD, and j-he used to offer incense on the one that was before the LORD. And he kept the House in repair.-j
26King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Elothk on the shore of the Sea of Reeds in the land of Edom. 27Hiram sent servants of his with the fleet, mariners who were experienced on the sea, to serve with Solomon’s men. 28They came to Ophir; there they obtained gold in the amount of four hundred and twenty talents, which they delivered to King Solomon.
10 The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, a-through the name of the LORD,-a and she came to rest him with hard questions. 2She arrived in Jerusalem with a very large retinue, with camels bearing spices, a great quantity of gold, and precious stones. When she came to Solomon, she asked him all that she had in mind. 3Solomon had answers for all her questions; there was nothing that the king did not know, [nothing] to which he could not give her an answer. 4When the queen of Sheba observed all of Solomon’s wisdom, and the palace he had built, 5the fare of his table, the seating of his courtiers, the service and attire of his attendants, and his wine service, b-and the burnt offerings that he offered at-b the House of the LORD, she was left breathless.
6She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own land about you and your wisdom was true. 7But I did not believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes that not even the half had been told me; your wisdom and wealth surpass the reports that I heard. 8How fortunate are
