1 Kings 9


The Lord Appears to Solomon

aAs soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord band the king’s house and call that Solomon desired to build,
2 athe Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, aby putting my name there forever. bMy eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 4 And as for you, if you will awalk before me, bas David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, 5 athen I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 aBut if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 athen I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, band the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, cand Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a heap of ruins.1 Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, a‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will say, ‘Because athey abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon’s Other Acts

10 aAt the end of btwenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house,
11 and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. 13 Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of aCabul to this day. 14 Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents1 of gold.
15 And this is the account of athe forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and bthe Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and cHazor and dMegiddo and Gezer
16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed athe Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to bhis daughter, Solomon’s wife; 17 so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and aLower Beth-horon 18 and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,1 19 and all the store cities that Solomon had, and athe cities for his chariots, and the cities for bhis horsemen, and whatever Solomon cdesired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. 20 All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel⁠— 21 atheir descendants who were left after them in the land, bwhom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction1⁠—cthese Solomon drafted to be dslaves, and so they are to this day. 22 But aof the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen.
23 These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work: a550 bwho had charge of the people who carried on the work.

24 But aPharaoh’s daughter went up from the city of David to bher own house that Solomon had built for her. cThen he built dthe Millo.

25 Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the Lord, making offerings with it1 before the Lord. So he finished the house.

26 King Solomon built a fleet of ships at aEzion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.
27 And Hiram sent awith the fleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. 28 And they went to aOphir and brought from there gold, 420 talents, and they brought it to King Solomon.
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.