And Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands, of hundreds, and to the judges and to every leader in all Israel, the heads of the fathers’ households.

Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom

And Solomon said to God, “You have dealt with my father David with great faithfulness, and have made me king in his place.

Now, Lord God, Your promise to my father David is fulfilled, for You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Then Solomon sent word to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, “As you dealt with my father David and sent him cedars to build him a house to live in, do it for me.

Now send me a skilled man to work in gold, silver, brass, iron, and in purple, crimson, and violet fabrics, one who knows how to make engravings, to work with the skilled workers whom I have in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David provided.

the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father, who knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, violet, linen, and crimson fabrics, and who knows how to make all kinds of engravings and to execute any design which is assigned to him, to work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, your father David.

Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, following the census which his father David had taken; and 153,600 were found.

The Temple Construction in Jerusalem

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

The Ark Is Brought into the Temple

So all the work that Solomon performed for the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, the silver, the gold, and all the utensils, and he put them in the treasuries of the house of God.

Then Solomon assembled at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, and the leaders of the fathers’ households of the sons of Israel, to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord up from the city of David, which is Zion.

He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who spoke with His mouth to my father David, and fulfilled it with His hands, saying,

Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to my father David, ‘Because it was in your heart to build a house for My name, you did well that it was in your heart.

Now the Lord has fulfilled His word which He spoke; for I have risen in place of my father David and sit on the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

You who have kept with Your servant, my father David, that which You promised him; You have spoken with Your mouth and have fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day.

Now then, Lord, God of Israel, keep to Your servant David, my father, that which You promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay attention to their way, to walk in My Law as you have walked before Me.’

then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You have given to them and to their fathers.

so that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You have given to our fathers.

if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been taken captive, and pray toward their land which You have given to their fathers and the city which You have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name,

As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, to do according to everything that I have commanded you, and keep My statutes and My ordinances,

then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’

And they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods, and worshiped and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.’”

Now according to the ordinance of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their service, and the Levites for their duties of praise and ministering before the priests according to the daily rule, and the gatekeepers by their divisions at every gate; for this is what David, the man of God, had commanded.

Death of Solomon

And Solomon lay down with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David; and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

“Your father made our yoke hard; but now, lighten the hard labor imposed by your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.”