Solomon Is Born

²⁴ David comforted his wife Bathsheba and slept with her. Later on, she gave birth to another son and named him Solomon. The Lord loved Solomon

²⁵ and sent Nathan the prophet to tell David, “The Lord will call him Jedidiah.”^[a]

Solomon Disobeys the Lord

11 ^1-2 (A) The Lord did not want the Israelites to worship foreign gods, so he had warned them not to marry anyone who was not from Israel.

Solomon loved his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt. But he also loved some women from Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and others from Sidon and the land of the Hittites. ^3-4 Seven hundred of his wives were daughters of kings, but he also married 300 other women.^[a]

As Solomon got older, some of his wives led him to worship their gods. He wasn't like his father David, who had worshiped only the Lord God. ⁵ Solomon also worshiped Astarte the goddess of Sidon, and Milcom the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁶ Solomon's father had obeyed the Lord with all his heart, but Solomon disobeyed and did what the Lord hated.

⁷ Solomon built shrines on a hill east of Jerusalem to worship Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Molech the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁸ In fact, he built a shrine for each of his foreign wives, so all of them could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.