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9
What Yahweh replied to Solomon's prayer
1 After Solomon's workers had finished building the temple and his palace and everything else that Solomon wanted them to build, 2 Yahweh appeared to him in a dream a second time, like he had appeared to him at Gibeon city. 3 Yahweh said to him,
“I heard what you prayed and what you pleaded for me to do. I have ◄dedicated/set apart► this temple which your workers have built to be the place where people will worship me [MTY] forever. I [SYN] will never stop guarding and protecting [DOU] it.
4 And as for you, if you conduct your life as I want you to, like your father David did, and if you very sincerely [DOU] obey all the statutes and laws [DOU] that I have commanded you to obey, 5 I will do what I promised your father that I would do: I promised him that Israel would always be [LIT] ruled by his descendants.
6 But if you or your descendants turn away from me and disobey the commands and statutes [DOU] that I have given to you, and if you start to worship other gods, 7 I will remove my Israeli people from the land that I have given to them. I will also abandon this temple that I have ◄dedicated/set apart► to be the place where people should worship me [MTY]. Then people everywhere will despise Israel and make fun of it. 8 This temple will become a heap of ruins. Everyone who passes by will be astonished when they see it, and they will hiss/whistle and say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this temple?’ 9 And people will reply, ‘It happened because the Israeli 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 all these evil things to happen to them.’ ”
Other things that Solomon did
10 Solomon's workers worked for twenty years to build the temple and the palace. 11 Hiram, the king of Tyre city 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 Galilee region. 12 But when Hiram went from Tyre to Galilee to see the cities that Solomon had given to him, he was not pleased with them. 13 He said to Solomon, “My friend, those cities that you gave me are lousy/worthless cities!” [RHQ] Because of that, that area is still called 'Worthless.' 14 Hiram gave Solomon only five tons of gold for those cities.
15 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/terraces on the east side of the city, and the wall around Jerusalem, and to rebuild Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer cities. 16 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/present when she married Solomon. 17 So Solomon's workers also rebuilt Gezer, and they also rebuilt Lower Beth-Horon city. 18 They also rebuilt Baalath and Tamar towns in the desert in the southern part of Judah. 19 They also built the cities where they kept the supplies for Solomon, the places for his horses and chariots, and everything else that Solomon wanted them to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in other places in the area over which he ruled.
20 There were many people who belonged to the Amor people-group, the Heth people-group, the Periz people-group, the Hiv people-group, and the Jebus people-group who were not killed when the Israelis captured their land. 21 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. 22 But Solomon did not force any Israeli people to become slaves. Some of them became soldiers and army officers and commanders and drivers of his chariots and men/soldiers who rode on horses. 23 There were 550 officials who supervised the slaves who worked to build all those places.
24 After Solomon's wife, who was the daughter of the king of Egypt, moved from the place outside 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.
25 Three times each year Solomon brought to the temple offerings that were completely burned on the altar and offerings to restore fellowship with Yahweh. He also brought incense to be burned in the presence of Yahweh.
And that is how his men finished building the temple.
26 King Solomon's workers also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-Geber city, which is near Elath city, on the shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, in the land belonging to the Edom people-group. 27 King Hiram sent some very expert sailors to go/serve/work on the ships with Solomon's workers. 28 They sailed to the Ophir region and brought back to Solomon about sixteen tons of gold.

- 1 Kings
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Note: The Old Testament in this translation is still being worked on, and is in draft form. Updates will be posted at eBible.org/t4t/.

© 2008-2017 Ellis W. Deibler, Jr.