UST by section 1 KI 9:1

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The First Book of Kings 9

9 After Solomon’s workers had finished building the temple and his palace and everything else that Solomon wanted them to build, 2 Yahweh appeared to him in a dream. That was the same way in which he had appeared to him earlier at the city of Gibeon. 3 Yahweh said to him, “I agree to do what asked me to do when you prayed to me at the temple. I have made the temple you built a place where I will be present in a special way so that people can always worship me there. I will always pay attention to what people pray when they face the temple, and I will always care deeply about what happens there. 4 And as for you, conduct your life as I want you to, just as your father David did. Obey very sincerely all the laws that I have commanded you to obey as an Israelite. If you do that, 5 then I will make sure that you are the king of Israel for your whole life and that your descendants reign as king after you. That is what I promised to your father David. I promised him that one of his descendants would always rule Israel. 6 But suppose that you or one of your descendants who becomes king stops worshiping me. Suppose you disobey the laws that I have given to you to obey. Suppose that you start to live the way that people who worship other gods live. Suppose you even bow down to idols that represent those gods. 7 If you do that, then I will allow an enemy to take the Israelite people away from this land that I have given to them. I will also allow an enemy to destroy this temple that I have made a place where I will be especially present. Then people everywhere will use the Israelites as an example of a very bad thing happening to a people group. They will even mock other people by saying that they are like the Israelites. 8 Even though this temple is now very beautiful, if you disobey me and worship other gods, someday everyone who sees where it used to be will wonder whatever happened to it. They will hiss in contempt and they will ask, ‘Why did Yahweh allow an enemy to take the Israelite people away from this land and destroy their temple?’ 9 Other people will reply, ‘This happened because the Israelite people abandoned Yahweh their God. He was the one who rescued their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. But they became loyal to other gods instead. They lived the way people who worship those other gods live. They even bowed down to idols that represented those gods. That is why Yahweh caused them to experience all these disasters.’ ” 10 Solomon’s workers spent 20 years building Yahweh’s temple and Solomon’s palace. 11 Hiram, the king of the city of Tyre, had arranged for his workers to provide Solomon with cedar and pine logs and with gold. That enabled Solomon to build everything he wanted to build. In gratitude, after his workers had completed the building projects, King Solomon gave Hiram 20 cities in the region of Galilee. 12 Hiram traveled from Tyre to Galilee to visit the cities that Solomon had given to him. When he saw them, he did not like them. 13 He said to Solomon, “My friend, those cities that you gave me are worthless.” Because of that, Hiram called that region the Land of Cabul. That is still the name of that region now. 14 Hiram was so upset because he had provided Solomon with about 4,000 kilograms of gold for the temple and for his palace.

15 This is an account of how King Solomon forced some of the men who lived in the land of Israel to work hard on his building projects. He forced them to work on the temple, his palace, the Millo, and the wall around Jerusalem. He also forced them to work to make the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer into fortresses. 16 The city of Gezer belonged to Solomon because Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had sent his army to attack Gezer and capture it. His soldiers had burned all the houses in the city and killed all the people who lived there. They were Canaanites. Pharaoh then gave that city to his daughter as a gift when she married Solomon. 17 Then Solomon’s workers rebuilt Gezer as a border fortress city. They also built up as border fortress cities Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tamar in the desolate area in the southern part of Judah. 19 They also built the cities where Solomon kept supplies and the places where he kept his horses and chariots. They also built everything else that he wanted them to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and other places where he had royal authority. 20 There were many people living in Solomon’s kingdom who were not Israelites. Rather, they were Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. 21 These people were descendants of members of those people groups whom the Israelites were not able to kill when they defeated those groups and occupied the land of Canaan. It was those people whom Solomon forced to work hard on his building projects. The Israelites still require those people to work for them. 22 But Solomon did not force any Israelite people to become slaves. Instead, some of them became his soldiers, officials, army commanders, army officers, and leaders of his chariot forces and troops who rode on horses.

23 Solomon also had 550 officials who supervised the men who commanded the workers whom he forced to build all those places.

24 Solomon had his workers build a palace for his wife, who was the daughter of the king of Egypt. After she moved there from the City of David, where she had been living, Solomon had his workers build the Millo.

25 Three times each year, on the altar that he had built for Yahweh in front of the temple, Solomon offered sacrifices that the priests burned completely on the altar and fellowship sacrifices. He also brought incense for the priests to burn with these sacrifices. In that way Solomon made the temple the place where the Israelites would come to worship Yahweh.

26 King Solomon also had his workers build a fleet of ships at the city of Ezion Geber. That city is near the city of Elath on the shore of the Sea of Reeds in the territory of the Edomites. 27 Some of King Hiram’s subjects were experienced sailors who knew well how to sail in the ocean. He had them go on these ships with Solomon’s men. 28 They sailed together to the region of Ophir, and from there they brought back to Solomon about 14 metric tons of gold.

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UST by section 1 KI 9:1

The First Book of Kings 9

UST by section 1 KI 9:1