1 ARST After Solomon’ s workers had finished building the temple and his palace and everything else that Solomon wanted them to build, BSB BSB: Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all that he had desired to do,
2 ARST Yahweh appeared to him in a dream a second time, like he had appeared to him at the city of Gibeon. BSB BSB: the LORD appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.
3 ARST Yahweh said to him,“I heard what you prayed and what you pleaded for me to do. I have set this house apart for myself, for me to be present in it forever. BSB BSB: And the LORD said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.
4 ARST And as for you, if you conduct your life as I want you to, like your father David did, and if you very sincerely obey all the statutes and decrees that I have commanded you to obey, BSB BSB: And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,
5 ARST I will do what I promised your father that I would do. I promised him that Israel would always be ruled by his descendants. BSB BSB: then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’
6 ARST But suppose that you or your descendants stop worshiping me; suppose that you disobey the commands and decrees that I have given to you; suppose that you start to worship other gods. BSB BSB: But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods,
7 ARST Then I will remove my Israelite people from the land that I have given to them. I will also abandon this temple that I have dedicated. Then people everywhere will despise Israel and make fun of it. BSB BSB: then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.
8 ARST Despite the fact that this temple is very beautiful, there will come a time when everyone who passes by will be astonished when they see it, and they will hiss and say,‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this temple?’ BSB BSB: And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’
9 ARST Other people will reply,‘It happened because the Israelite people abandoned Yahweh their God, the one who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They started to accept and worship other gods. And that is why Yahweh has caused them to experience all these disasters.’” BSB BSB: And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”
10 ARST Solomon’ s workers worked for twenty years to build the temple and the palace. BSB BSB: Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace,
11 ARST Hiram, the king of the city of Tyre, had arranged for his workers to give Solomon all the cedar and pine logs and all the gold that he needed for this work. After it was all finished, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the region of Galilee. BSB BSB: King Solomon gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every desire.
12 ARST But when Hiram went from Tyre to Galilee to see the cities that Solomon had given to him, he was not pleased with them. BSB BSB: So Hiram went out from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.
13 ARST He said to Solomon,“My friend, those cities that you gave me are worthless.” Because of that, Hiram called that region Worthless. BSB BSB: “What are these towns you have given me, my brother?” asked Hiram, and he called them the Land of Cabul, as they are called to this day.
14 ARST Hiram gave Solomon only 4, 000 kilograms of gold for those cities. BSB BSB: And Hiram had sent the king 120 talents of gold.
15 ARST This is a record of the work that King Solomon forced men to do. He forced them to build the temple and his palace and the landfill on the east side of the city, and the wall around Jerusalem, and to rebuild the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. BSB BSB: This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the LORD, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16 ARST The reason they needed to rebuild Gezer was that the army of the king of Egypt had attacked Gezer and captured it. Then they had burned the houses in the city and killed all the people of the Canaan people group who lived there. The king of Egypt gave that city to his daughter for a gift when she married Solomon. BSB BSB: Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.
17 ARST So Solomon’ s workers also rebuilt the city of Gezer, and they also rebuilt the city of Lower Beth Horon. BSB BSB: So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon,
18 ARST They also rebuilt the cities of Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness in the southern part of Judah. BSB BSB: Baalath, and Tamar in the Wilderness of Judah,
20 ARST There were many people groups who belonged to the Amor, the Heth, the Periz, the Hiv, and the Jebus, who were not killed when the Israelites captured their land. BSB BSB: As for all the people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (the people who were not Israelites)—
21 ARST Their descendants still lived in Israel. It was those people whom Solomon forced to become his slaves to build all those places, and they are still slaves. BSB BSB: their descendants who remained in the land, those whom the Israelites were unable to devote to destruction—Solomon conscripted these people to be forced laborers, as they are to this day.
22 ARST But Solomon did not force any Israelite people to become slaves. Some of them became soldiers, servants, officials, army officers, commanders of his chariot forces, and men who rode on his horses. BSB BSB: But Solomon did not consign any of the Israelites to slavery, because they were his men of war, his servants, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and cavalry.
23 ARST There were 550 officials who supervised the slaves who worked to build all those places. BSB BSB: They were also the chief officers over Solomon’s projects: 550 supervisors over the people who did the work.
24 ARST After Solomon’ s wife, who was the daughter of the king of Egypt, moved from the part of Jerusalem called the city of David to the palace that Solomon’ s workers built for her, Solomon told his workers to fill in the land on the east side of the city. BSB BSB: As soon as Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace that Solomon had built for her, he built the supporting terraces.
25 ARST Three times each year Solomon brought to the temple offerings that the priests burned completely on the altar and offerings to promise friendship with Yahweh. He also brought incense to be burned in the presence of Yahweh. And that is how his men finished building the temple. BSB BSB: Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the LORD, burning incense with them before the LORD. So he completed the temple.
26 ARST King Solomon’ s workers also built a fleet of ships at the city of Ezion Geber, which is near the city of Elath, on the shore of the Sea of Reeds, in the land belonging to the Edom people group. BSB BSB: King Solomon also assembled a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.
27 ARST King Hiram sent some expert sailors to go on the ships with Solomon’ s workers. BSB BSB: And Hiram sent his servants, sailors who knew the sea, to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s servants.
28 ARST They sailed to the region of Ophir and brought back to Solomon about fourteen metric tons of gold. BSB BSB: They sailed to Ophir and imported gold from there—420 talents—and delivered it to Solomon.
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