Melachim I - Chapter 9

1. And it was when Solomon had finished building the Temple of the Lord and the King's palace and all Solomon's desire that he wished to make.

2. The Lord appeared to Solomon a second time as He had appeared to him in Gibeon.

3. And the Lord spoke to him: "I have heard your prayer and your petition, which you have petitioned before Me. I have consecrated this Temple which you have built to place My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart shall be there at all times.

4. As for You, if you go before Me, as David your father went wholeheartedly and with uprightness to do in accordance with all that I have commanded you [and] you will keep My statutes and laws.

5. I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever as I have spoken to David your father, saying: A man will not fail you upon the throne of Israel.

6. But if you and your children turn away from following Me, and you will not adhere to My commandments and My statutes, which I have placed before you, but go and worship other gods and bow before them.

7. Then I will cut Israel off, from the land which I have given to them, and this house which I have made sacrosanct for My Name will I dismiss from My presence, and Israel shall be for a proverb and a byword among all nations.

8. And this Temple [which] is exalted, [shall become forlorn] and every passerby shall be astounded and will hiss, and they will say: "Why has the Lord done this to this country and to this Temple?"

9. They will be told, "Because they abandoned the Lord, their God, Who delivered their forefathers out of the Land of Egypt; and took hold of other gods and bowed to them and served them. Therefore, has the Lord brought all this retribution upon them. "

10. And it was at the end of twenty years during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Temple of the Lord and the King's house.

11. Hiram, the king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with cedar wood, and with cypress wood, and with gold, as according to all his wishes, then king Solomon gave Hiram in return twenty cities in the land of Galilee.

12. And Hiram left Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, and they did not please him.

13. And he said: "What are these cities that you have given me, my brother?" And he called them the land of Cabul, which they are called to this day.

14. And Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents of gold.

15. And this is the matter of the tax levy which king Solomon raised; to build the Temple of the Lord, and his own house and the Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer.

16. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up and conquered Gezer and burnt it with fire, and slayed the Canaanites who inhabited the city; and he gave it as a gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife.

17. And Solomon built Gezer and the lower Beth-horon.

18. And Baalath and Tadmor in the desert in the land.

19. And all the store-cities that Solomon had and the cities of his chariots and the cities of his riders and Solomon's desire that he desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land of his sovereignty.

20. All the remaining people of the Amorites, Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel.

21. (Even) Their children who remained after them, in the land, whom the Children of Israel were unable to annihilate, of them did Solomon raise a levy of forced labor until this day.

22. But of the Children of Israel, Solomon made no levy of forced labor, because they were the warriors, his servants, his officers, his commanders, and the officers of his chariots and his horsemen.

23. These were the commanders over officers who were [appointed] over Solomon's work, five hundred and fifty, who ruled over the people who engaged in the work.

24. But Pharaoh's daughter came up from the City of David to her house, which Solomon had built for her, then he built the Millo.

25. And three times in a year did Solomon offer up burnt-offerings and peace-offerings upon the altar he had built to the Lord, burning upon it incense [upon the altar] that was before the Lord, so he completed [the service of] the Temple.

26. King Solomon made a ship in Etzion Geber, which is beside Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom.

27. And Hiram sent in ships his servants, seafarers, those navigators of the sea, with Solomon's servants.

28. And they came to Ophir, and obtained from there gold-four hundred and twenty talents, and delivered [it] to King Solomon.