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The First Book of Kings 3

3 Then Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Solomon married his daughter and brought her to live in the part of Jerusalem that people called the City of David. She lived there until Solomon’s workers had finished building his palace, the temple of Yahweh, and the wall around Jerusalem. 2 Solomon had not yet built a temple where people could worship Yahweh, so the Israelite people were still offering sacrifices to him at shrines on the tops of hills. 3 Solomon loved Yahweh, and so he obeyed Yahweh just as his father David had done. But he, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense on hilltop shrines before he built the temple.

4 One day King Solomon went to the city of Gibeon to offer sacrifices. He went there because the main place of worship for the Israelites was there at that time. Solomon offered a thousand sacrifices that he burned completely on the altar. 5 That night, while Solomon was still at Gibeon, Yahweh appeared to him in a dream. He told him, “Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you.” 6 Solomon replied, “My father David worshiped you, and you always treated him with great kindness. You did that because he was faithful to you, he treated other people properly, and he was honest with you about what he was truly thinking and planning. You have continued to treat him with great kindness by allowing me, his son, to become the next king of Israel after him. That is what I am right now. 7 Yahweh my God, David my father is no longer the king. You have made me the king instead. But I am still a young man. I do not know how I should rule the Israelites. 8 I live among the Israelite people whom you have chosen. They are a very large group of people. Because there are so many of them, no one can count them. 9 So please enable me think clearly so that I can rule your people well. Enable me to understand whether what people are doing is right or wrong. That way I will be able to fulfill the important task of making sure that your people treat one another fairly.”

10 Yahweh was very pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 God told him, “You did not ask to live for a long time or to become very rich or that would you be able to kill your enemies. Instead, you asked me to enable you to become wise so that you would be able to decide people’s cases fairly. As a result, 12 I will certainly do what you requested. I will indeed enable you to become very wise. As a result, you will be wiser than anyone who has already lived, and no one who lives later will ever be as wise as you are now. 13 I will also give you things that you did not ask for. I will enable you to become very rich, and people will honor you greatly. For as long as you live, no other king will have more wealth than you, and people will not honor any other king more than they honor you. 14 If you conduct your life as I want you to, and if you obey everything I have commanded, just as your father David did, then I will also enable you to live for many years.” 15 Then Solomon woke up, and he realized that God had been speaking to him in a dream. He went back to Jerusalem and stood in front of the sacred tent where the sacred chest was. There he offered many sacrifices that he burned completely on the altar. He also offered fellowship sacrifices. Then he made a great feast for all his officials.

16 Shortly after that, two prostitutes came to King Solomon to have him decide a dispute between them. They stood in front of him to present their cases. 17 One of them said, “Your Majesty, please help me. This woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a baby while she was there in the house. 18 Two days after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth to a baby. No one else was there with us in the house. 19 One night while she was sleeping, this woman accidentally rolled on top of her baby, and she smothered it and it died. 20 So she got up while it was still night. I was asleep, and my baby boy was sleeping next to me. She picked him up and brought him to her bed, and she brought her dead baby boy and put him in my bed. 21 When I first woke up the next morning, I wanted to nurse my baby boy, but I found that he had died. However, after it got lighter, I could see that he was not the baby boy to whom I had given birth.” 22 But the other woman said, “That is not true! The baby boy who is alive is my son, and the baby boy who died is your son!” Then the first woman responded, “No, the dead boy is your son, and the living boy is my son!” And they continued to argue that way as they stood before the king.

23 Then the king said, “Each of you is claiming that it is your own son who is alive and that it is the other woman’s son who has died.’ ” 24 Then he told his servants, “Bring me a sword.” So his servants went and got him a sword. 25 Then the king told his servants, “Cut the baby boy who is still alive into two parts. Give one part to each of these women.” 26 But the woman whose son was alive felt great love for him and did not want him to die. So she said to the king, “No, Your Majesty! Please do not have your servants cut him in half and kill him! You may give him to the other woman.” But the other woman said to her, “No, neither you nor I will have him alive.” Then she told the servants, “Cut him in half.” 27 Then the king pointed to the woman who had said not to cut the child in half and said, “Do not kill the child, but give him to her. She is truly his mother.” 28 The Israelite people heard about how King Solomon had judged this case. This made them afraid to do anything wrong, because they knew that he would recognize that they had done wrong. They realized that God had enabled him to be very wise so that he could decide people’s cases fairly.

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UST by section 1 KI 3:1

The First Book of Kings 3

UST by section 1 KI 3:1