Open English Translation 2 CHR Chapter 9

9 The queen from the Sheva region had heard all about Shelomoh, and she came to Yerushalem with some hard questions. Her party included a large number of camels carrying lots of spices and gold and valuable gemstones. She came to Shelomoh and discussed everything that was on her mind with him.[ref] 2 Shelomoh responded to all her queries, and there wasn’t any subject that he wasn’t able to speak to. 3 When the queen from Sheva saw Shelomoh’s wisdom, and saw the palace that he’d built 4 and the food at his table, as well as the seating of his servants, his well-dressed ministers standing by, his cup-bearers in their uniforms, and the burnt offerings that he sacrificed at Yahweh’s temple, it took her breath away 5 and she told the king, “Everything I heard in my own country about you and you wisdom was true. 6 I didn’t believe what they reported to me until I saw it with my own eyes, and wow, the reports that I heard didn’t even cover half of the extent of your wisdom! 7 Your men are blessed, and even your servants are blessed to be able to continually stand in front of you and listen to your wisdom. 8 Let your god Yahweh be blessed—the one who delighted in you to place you on his throne as his king. Your god loved Yisrael and wanted to establish them forever, so he’s placed you over them as king—to give justice and do what is right.”

9 Then she gave the king four tonnes of gold, a very large quantity of spices, and valuable gemstones. Nobody before had ever seen such a large amount of spices as what the queen from Sheva gave to King Shelomoh.

10 (Also, King Huram’s servants working together with Shelomoh’s servants brought gold from Ofir, as well as algum wood and valuable gemstones. 11 The king made the algum wood into staircases for Yahweh’s temple and for the king’s palace, and into lyres and harps for the singers. Nothing like that had been seen before in Yehudah.)

12 King Shelomoh gave the queen from Sheba everything she wanted—more than what she’d brought to the king. Then she departed with her servants and went back to her country.

13 In one year, Shelomoh received about twenty tonnes of gold, 14 as well as what the merchants and traders brought in. All the Arabian kings, and all the local governors brought gold and silver to Shelomoh. 15 King Shelomoh made two hundred large shields of beaten gold—six hundred gold coins worth of beaten gold went into each shield. 16 Also, three hundred smaller shields—three hundred gold coins worth of beaten gold went into each shield.

17 Then the king made a large, ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold. 18 There were six steps leading up to the throne, and a gold footstool was attached to it. It had armrests on each side, with a lion statue beside each armrest. 19 There were twelve statues of lions standing on the six steps—one at each end of each step. No throne like that existed in any other kingdom.

20 All of King Shelomoh’s cups were made of gold, and all the various dishes in ‘The House of the Lebanon Forest’ were refined gold. Nothing was made of silver, because in the time of Shelomoh’s reign, silver wasn’t considered valuable 21 because the king’s ships went to Tarshish with Huram’s servants. Every three years the fleet would bring back gold, silver, ivory, and apes and baboons, 22 so King Shelomoh became greater than all the other kings in the world, both in wealth and in wisdom.

23 Kings from all over the world wanted to come and listen to the wisdom that God had given Shelomoh. 24 Each of them would bring gifts: gold and silver items, clothes, myrrh and spices, horses and mules. (This continued year after year.)

25 Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, and he kept some in the chariot cities and some close by in Yerushalem.[ref] 26 He ended up ruling over all the kings in the region from the Euphrates River in the northeast, west to the area of the Philistines, and south down to the Egyptian border.[ref] 27 The king made silver as common as stones, and cedar timber as common as the sycamore fig trees in the lowlands. 28 Horses were brought in from Egypt (Heb. Mitsrayim) for Shelomoh and from other countries as well.[ref]

29 Everything else that Shelomoh did, from the beginning to the end, was written down by the prophet Natan, and the prophecy by Ahiyah (from Shiloh) and the prophet Iddo’s visions about Nevat’s son Yaraveam (Jeroboam) were also written down. 30 Shelomoh reigned from Yerushalem over all Yisrael for forty years, 31 then he died and was buried with his father in ‘The City of David’, and his son Rehaveam (Rehoboam) replaced him as king.