While you are still there talking to the king, I will come in and add my word to what you have said.”

While she was still speaking with the king, Nathan the prophet arrived.

Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they were finishing their feast. On hearing the sound of the trumpet, Joab asked, “What’s the meaning of all the noise in the city?”

The Lord will repay him for the blood he shed, because without my father David knowing it he attacked two men and killed them with the sword. Both of them—Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel’s army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah’s army—were better men and more upright than he.

The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because a temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord.

One of them said, “Pardon me, my lord. This woman and I live in the same house, and I had a baby while she was there with me.

The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast.

The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”

And these were his chief officials: Azariah son of Zadok—the priest;

Ben-Hesed—in Arubboth (Sokoh and all the land of Hepher were his);

Ben-Geber—in Ramoth Gilead (the settlements of Jair son of Manasseh in Gilead were his, as well as the region of Argob in Bashan and its sixty large walled cities with bronze gate bars);

Solomon’s Daily Provisions

The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.

And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries brought tribute and were Solomon’s subjects all his life.

Solomon’s daily provisions were thirty cors of the finest flour and sixty cors of meal,

The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms.

In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.

And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.

The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape.

He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room.

For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary.

In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall.

Its windows were placed high in sets of three, facing each other.

All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other.