I Kings 10-13

I Kings 10

¹Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions.

²And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels weighted down with spices, and stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

³And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which the king did not make clear to her.

⁴And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had made,

⁵And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

⁶And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.

⁷But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself; and now I see that it was not half the story; your wisdom and your wealth are much greater than they said.

⁸Happy are your wives, happy are these your servants whose place is ever before you, hearing your words of wisdom.

⁹May the Lord your God be praised, whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; because the Lord's love for Israel is eternal, he has made you king, to be their judge in righteousness.

¹⁰And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels: never again was such a wealth of spices seen as that which the queen of Sheba gave King Solomon.

¹¹And the sea-force of Hiram, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with much sandal-wood and jewels.

¹²And from the sandal-wood the king made pillars for the house of the Lord, and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody: never has such sandal-wood been seen to this day.

¹³And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what he gave her freely from the impulse of his heart. So she went back to her country, she and her servants.

¹⁴Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents;

¹⁵In addition to what came to him from the business of the traders, and from all the kings of the Arabians, and from the rulers of the country.

¹⁶And Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it.

¹⁷And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, with three pounds of gold in every cover: and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon.

¹⁸Then the king made a great ivory seat, plated with the best gold.

¹⁹There were six steps going up to it, and the top of it was round at the back, there were arms on the two sides of the seat, and two lions by the side of the arms;

²⁰And twelve lions were placed on the one side and on the other side on the six steps: there was nothing like it in any kingdom.

²¹And all King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold; not one was of silver, for no one gave a thought to silver in the days of King Solomon.

²²For the king had Tarshish-ships at sea with the ships of Hiram; once every three years the Tarshish-ships came with gold and silver and ivory and monkeys and peacocks.

²³And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom.

²⁴And from all over the earth they came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

²⁵And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses, and beasts of transport, regularly year by year.

²⁶And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

²⁷And the king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number.

²⁸And Solomon's horses came from Egypt and from Kue; the king's traders got them at a price from Kue.

²⁹A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty; they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

I Kings 11

¹Now a number of strange women were loved by Solomon, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites:

²The nations of which the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You are not to take wives from them and they are not to take wives from you; or they will certainly make you go after their gods: to these Solomon was united in love.

³He had seven hundred wives, daughters of kings, and three hundred other wives; and through his wives his heart was turned away.

⁴For it came about that when Solomon was old, his heart was turned away to other gods by his wives; and his heart was no longer true to the Lord his God as the heart of his father David had been.

⁵For Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcom, the disgusting god of the Ammonites.

⁶And Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not walking in the Lord's ways with all his heart as David his father did.

⁷Then Solomon put up a high place for Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, in the mountain before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the disgusting god worshipped by the children of Ammon.

⁸And so he did for all his strange wives, who made offerings with burning of perfumes to their gods.

⁹And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had twice come to him in a vision;

¹⁰And had given him orders about this very thing, that he was not to go after other gods; but he did not keep the orders of the Lord.

¹¹So the Lord said to Solomon, Because you have done this, and have not kept my agreement and my laws, which I gave you, I will take the kingdom away from you by force and will give it to your servant.

¹²I will not do it in your life-time, because of your father David, but I will take it from your son.

¹³Still I will not take all the kingdom from him; but I will give one tribe to your son, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town of my selection.

¹⁴So the Lord sent Hadad the Edomite to make trouble for Solomon: he was of the king's seed in Edom.

¹⁵And when David had sent destruction on Edom, and Joab, the captain of the army, had gone to put the dead into the earth, and had put to death every male in Edom;

¹⁶(For Joab and all Israel were there six months till every male in Edom had been cut off;)

¹⁷Hadad, being still a young boy, went in flight to Egypt, with certain Edomites, servants of his father;

¹⁸And they went on from Midian and came to Paran; and, taking men from Paran with them, they came to Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who gave him a house and gave orders for his food and gave him land.

¹⁹Now Hadad was very pleasing to Pharaoh, so that he gave him the sister of his wife, Tahpenes the queen, for his wife.

²⁰And the sister of Tahpenes had a son by him, Genubath, whom Tahpenes took care of in Pharaoh's house; and Genubath was living in Pharaoh's house among Pharaoh's sons.

²¹Now when Hadad had news in Egypt that David had been put to rest with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, Send me back to my country.

²²But Pharaoh said to him, What have you been short of while you have been with me, that you are desiring to go back to your country? And he said, Nothing; but even so, send me back.

²³And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah:

²⁴He got some men together and made himself captain of a band of outlaws; and went to Damascus and became king there.

²⁵He was a trouble to Israel all through the days of Solomon. And this is the damage Hadad did: he was cruel to Israel while he was ruler over Edom.

²⁶And there was Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother was Zeruah, a widow; and his hand was lifted up against the king.

²⁷The way in which his hand came to be lifted up against the king was this: Solomon was building the Millo and making good the damaged parts of the town of his father David;

²⁸And Jeroboam was an able and responsible man; and Solomon saw that he was a good worker and made him overseer of all the work given to the sons of Joseph.

²⁹Now at that time, when Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite came across him on the road; now Ahijah had put on a new robe; and the two of them were by themselves in the open country.

³⁰And Ahijah took his new robe in his hands, parting it violently into twelve.

³¹And he said to Jeroboam, Take ten of the parts, for this is what the Lord has said: See, I will take the kingdom away from Solomon by force, and will give ten tribes to you;

³²(But one tribe will be his, because of my servant David, and because of Jerusalem, the town which, out of all the tribes of Israel, I have made mine,)

³³Because they are turned away from me to the worship of Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Chemosh, the god of Moab, and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites; they have not been walking in my ways or doing what is right in my eyes or keeping my laws and my decisions as his father David did.

³⁴But I will not take the kingdom from him; I will let him be king all the days of his life, because of David my servant, in whom I took delight because he kept my orders and my laws.

³⁵But I will take the kingdom from his son, and give it to you.

³⁶And one tribe I will give to his son, so that David my servant may have a light for ever burning before me in Jerusalem, the town which I have made mine to put my name there.

³⁷And you I will take, and you will be king over Israel, ruling over whatever is the desire of your soul.

³⁸And if you give attention to the orders I give you, walking in my ways and doing what is right in my eyes and keeping my laws and my orders as David my servant did; then I will be with you, building up for you a safe house, as I did for David, and I will give Israel to you.

³⁹(So that I may send trouble for this on the seed of David, but not for ever.)

⁴⁰And Solomon was looking for a chance to put Jeroboam to death; but he went in flight to Egypt, to Shishak, king of Egypt, and was in Egypt till the death of Solomon.

⁴¹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all he did, and his wisdom, are they not recorded in the book of the acts of Solomon?

⁴²And the time Solomon was king in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

⁴³And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father: and Solomon went to rest with his fathers and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

I Kings 12

¹And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king,

²And, hearing of it, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was still in Egypt, where he had gone in flight from Solomon, and was living there, came back to his town Zeredah, in the hill-country of Ephraim;

³And all the men of Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

⁴Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.

⁵And he said to them, Go away for three days and then come back to me again. So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?

⁷And they said to him, If you will be a servant to this people today, caring for them and giving them a gentle answer, then they will be your servants for ever.

⁸But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, and went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him:

⁹And said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?

¹⁰And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us; will you make it less? say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

¹¹If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.

¹²So all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come back to me the third day.

¹³And the king gave them a rough answer, giving no attention to the suggestion of the old men;

¹⁴But giving them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.

¹⁵So the king did not give ear to the people; and this came about by the purpose of the Lord, so that what he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, might be effected.

¹⁶And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? to your tents, O Israel; now see to your people, David. So Israel went away to their tents.

¹⁷(But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.)

¹⁸Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.

²⁰Now when all Israel had news that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him to come before the meeting of the people, and made him king over Israel: not one of them was joined to the family of David but only the tribe of Judah.

²¹When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he got together all the men of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, a hundred and eighty thousand of his best fighting-men, to make war against Israel and get the kingdom back for Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.

²²But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, saying,

²³Say to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the men of Judah and Benjamin and the rest of the people:

²⁴The Lord has said, You are not to go to war against your brothers, the children of Israel; go back, every man to his house, because this thing is my purpose. So they gave ear to the word of the Lord, and went back, as the Lord had said.

²⁵Then Jeroboam made the town of Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim a strong place, and was living there; and from there he went out and did the same to Penuel.

²⁶And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will go back to the family of David:

²⁷If the people go up to make offerings in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, their heart will be turned again to their lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah; and they will put me to death and go back to Rehoboam, king of Judah.

²⁸So after taking thought the king made two oxen of gold; and he said to the people, You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough; see! these are your gods, O Israel, who took you out of the land of Egypt.

²⁹And he put one in Beth-el and the other in Dan.

³⁰And this became a sin in Israel; for the people went to give worship to the one at Beth-el, and to the other at Dan.

³¹And he made places for worship at the high places, and made priests, who were not Levites, from among all the people.

³²And Jeroboam gave orders for a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is kept in Judah, and he went up to the altar. And in the same way, in Beth-el, he gave offerings to the oxen which he had made, placing in Beth-el the priests of the high places he had made.

³³He went up to the altar he had made in Beth-el on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the month fixed by him at his pleasure; and he gave orders for a feast for the people of Israel, and went up to the altar, and there he made the smoke of his offerings go up.

I Kings 13

¹Then a man of God came from Judah by the order of the Lord to Beth-el, where Jeroboam was by the altar, burning offerings.

²And by the order of the Lord he made an outcry against the altar, saying, O altar, altar, the Lord has said, From the seed of David will come a child, named Josiah, and on you he will put to death the priests of the high places, who are burning offerings on you, and men's bones will be burned on you.

³The same day he gave them a sign, saying, This is the sign which the Lord has given: See, the altar will be broken and the burned waste on it overturned.

⁴Then the king, hearing the man of God crying out against the altar at Beth-el, put out his hand from the altar, saying, Take him prisoner. And his hand, stretched out against him, became dead, and he had no power of pulling it back.

⁵And the altar was broken and the burned waste on it overturned; this was the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord.

⁶Then the king made answer and said to the man of God, Make a prayer now for the grace of the Lord your God, and for me, that my hand may be made well. And in answer to the prayer of the man of God, the king's hand was made well again, as it was before.

⁷And the king said to the man of God, Come with me to my house for food and rest, and I will give you a reward.

⁸But the man of God said to the king, Even if you gave me half of all you have, I would not go in with you, and I would not take food or a drink of water in this place;

⁹For so I was ordered by the word of the Lord, who said, You are not to take food or a drink of water, and you are not to go back the way you came.

¹⁰So he went another way, and not by the way he came to Beth-el.

¹¹Now there was an old prophet living in Beth-el; and one of his sons came and gave him word of all the man of God had done that day in Beth-el, and they gave their father an account of the words he had said to the king.

¹²Then their father said to them, Which way did he go? Now his sons had seen which way the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

¹³So the prophet said to his sons, Make ready an ass for me. So they made an ass ready, and he got on it,

¹⁴And went after the man of God, and came up with him while he was seated under an oak-tree. And he said to him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

¹⁵Then he said to him, Come back to the house with me and have a meal.

¹⁶But he said, I may not go back with you or go into your house; and I will not take food or a drink of water with you in this place;

¹⁷For the Lord said to me, You are not to take food or water there, or go back again by the way you came.

¹⁸Then he said to him, I am a prophet like you; and an angel said to me by the word of the Lord, Take him back with you and give him food and water. But he said false words to him.

¹⁹So he went back with him, and had a meal in his house and a drink of water.

²⁰But while they were seated at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had taken him back;

²¹And crying out to the man of God who came from Judah, he said, The Lord says, Because you have gone against the voice of the Lord, and have not done as you were ordered by the Lord,

²²But have come back, and have taken food and water in this place where he said you were to take no food or water; your dead body will not be put to rest with your fathers.

²³Now after the meal he made ready the ass for him, for the prophet whom he had taken back.

²⁴And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.

²⁵And some men, going by, saw the body stretched out in the road with the lion by its side; and they came and gave news of it in the town where the old prophet was living.

²⁶Then the prophet who had made him come back, hearing it, said, It is the man of God, who went against the word of the Lord; that is why the Lord has given him to the lion to be wounded to death, as the Lord said.

²⁷And he said to his sons, Make ready the ass for me. And they did so.

²⁸And he went and saw the dead body stretched out in the road with the ass and the lion by its side: the lion had not taken the body for its food or done any damage to the ass.

²⁹Then the prophet took up the body of the man of God and put it on the ass and took it back; and he came to the town to put the body to rest with weeping.

³⁰And he put the body in the resting-place made ready for himself, weeping and sorrowing over it, saying, O my brother!

³¹And when he had put it to rest, he said to his sons, When I am dead, then you are to put my body into the earth with the body of this man of God, and put me by his bones so that my bones may be kept safe with his bones.

³²For the outcry he made by the word of the Lord against the altar in Beth-el and against all the houses of the high places in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come about.

³³After this Jeroboam, not turning back from his evil ways, still made priests for his altars from among all the people; he made a priest of anyone desiring it, so that there might be priests of the high places.

³⁴And this became a sin in the family of Jeroboam, causing it to be cut off and sent to destruction from the face of the earth.