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 Egpyt (Heb. Mitsrayim) for Shelomoh and from other countries as well.[ref]