1 Kings 9

EasyEnglish Bible

The Lord appears again to Solomon

9 Solomon had finished building the Lord's temple and the king's palace. He had built everything that he had wanted to build. ² Then the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.^{[a] 3} The Lord said to Solomon,

‘I have heard your prayer and how you have asked me to help you. I have made this temple that you have built a special place for me. People will worship me there for ever. I will always be there to watch over it.

⁴ You must continue to serve me honestly and obey me, as your father David did. Do everything that I have commanded you to do. Obey my rules and my laws.

⁵ If you serve me truly, I will cause one of your descendants to rule over Israel as king for all time. That is what I promised to your father David when I said, “There will always be someone from your family to rule Israel as king.”^{[b] 6} But if you or your descendants turn away from me, I will punish your people. I will do that if you do not obey the laws and rules that I have given to you. I will do it if you choose to serve and to worship other gods. ⁷ Then I will remove the Israelite people from the land that I have given to them. I will turn away from this temple that I have made a special place for people to worship me. People from all the other nations will insult the Israelites and they will laugh at them. ⁸ This temple will became a heap of stones. Everyone who sees it will be very surprised. They will laugh about it! They will ask, “Why has the Lord destroyed this land and this temple?” ⁹ People will answer, “He has done it because they have turned away from the Lord their God. He brought their ancestors out of Egypt. But they have chosen to worship other gods and to serve them. That is why the Lord has caused this trouble to happen to them.” ’

Other things that Solomon did

¹⁰ Solomon was building the Lord's temple and the king's palace for 20 years. ¹¹ After this, he gave 20 towns in Galilee to Hiram, the king of Tyre. Solomon did this because Hiram had given him all that he needed for the work. Hiram had given him cedar wood, pine wood and gold. ¹² So Hiram left Tyre and he went to Galilee, to see the towns that Solomon had given to him. But Hiram was not happy with them. ¹³ He said to Solomon, ‘My friend, you have given me some useless towns!’ Hiram called that region ‘Kabul Land’. It still has that name today.^{[c] 14} Hiram had sent to King Solomon about 4,000 kilograms of gold.

¹⁵ Solomon made people work on the buildings for him. This is how he used them to build the Lord's temple, the king's palace, the Millo and the wall around Jerusalem. They also did work on the towns called Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. ¹⁶ Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked Gezer and he had taken it. He had destroyed it with fire. He killed the Canaanites who lived there.^[d] Then he gave it as a gift to his daughter, when she married Solomon. ¹⁷ So Solomon built Gezer again. He also built Lower Beth-Horon, ¹⁸ Baalath and Tadmor, which were towns in the wilderness of Judah. ¹⁹ Solomon also made strong the cities where he stored things and the cities where he kept his chariots and horses. He built everything that he wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and everywhere in his kingdom.

²⁰ Solomon only made people who were not Israelites do the hard work for him. They were Canaanite people who still lived in the land after the Israelites took it for themselves. They were Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ²¹ The Israelites had not been able to remove all of these people, so their descendants remained in the land. So Solomon made them do hard work as his slaves. They are still slaves of the Israelites today. ²² But Solomon did not make any of the Israelites do the hard work. Instead, they served him as his soldiers, government officers and army officers. Some of the soldiers drove chariots and some were leaders of the chariot drivers. ²³ There were also officers who had authority over the slaves who did the work. There were 550 officers who led the work.

²⁴ Solomon had built a palace for his wife, Pharaoh's daughter. When the palace was ready, she came up from the City of David. After that, Solomon built the Millo.

²⁵ Three times every year Solomon offered burnt offerings and friendship offerings as sacrifices to the Lord. He did this on the altar that he had built for the Lord. With these offerings, he also burned incense to worship the Lord. So the temple became the place to worship the Lord.

²⁶ King Solomon also built ships at Ezion-Geber. This place is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea. ²⁷ Hiram had sailors who knew how to sail ships on the sea. He sent some of these men to work with Solomon's sailors. ²⁸ They sailed to Ophir and they brought back about 14 tons of gold. They gave it to King Solomon.