The Lord appears again to Solomon: he builds cities: he sends a fleet to Ophir.

¹ Now it happened that, when Solomon had perfected the building of the house of the Lord, and the king’s house, and all that he had desired and had willed to do,

² the Lord appeared to him a second time, just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

³ And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your petition, which you prayed before me. I have sanctified this house, which you have built, so that I may place my name there forever, and so that my eyes and my heart will be there for all days.

⁴ Also, if you will walk before me, just as your father walked, in simplicity of heart and in equity, and you do all that I have instructed to you, and you keep my laws and my judgments,¹

1. 9:4As thy father walked, in simplicity of heart: That is, in the sincerity and integrity of a single heart, as opposite to all double dealing and deceit.(Challoner)

⁵ then I will set the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised your father David, saying: ‘A man from your stock shall not be taken away from the throne of Israel.’

⁶ But if you and your sons, wandering, will have turned away, not following me, and not keeping my commandments and my ceremonies, which I have proposed to you, but instead you go away, and you serve strange gods and adore them,

⁷ then I will take away Israel from the face of the land, which I have given to them. And the temple, which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast out from my sight. And Israel will be a proverb and a parable among all the peoples.

⁸ And this house will become an example: anyone who passes by it will be stupefied, and he will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord acted in this way to this land and to this house?’

⁹ And they will respond: ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who led their fathers away from the land of Egypt, and they followed strange gods, and they adored them and served them. For this reason, the Lord led all this evil over them.’ ”

¹⁰ Then, when twenty years were fulfilled, after Solomon had built the two houses, that is, the house of the Lord, and the house of the king,

¹¹ Hiram, the king of Tyre, having supplied Solomon with cedar wood, and spruce wood, and gold, in accord with all that he needed, then Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee.

¹² And Hiram went out of Tyre, so that he might view the towns that Solomon had given to him. And they did not please him.

¹³ And he said, “Are these the cities that you have given to me, brother?” And he called them the land of Cabul, even to this day.¹

1. 9:13Chabul: That is, dirty or displeasing.(Challoner)

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

¹⁵ This is the sum of the expenses that king Solomon offered for the building of the house of the Lord, and his own house, and for Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹⁶ Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, ascended and seized Gezer, and he burned it with fire. And he put to death the Canaanite who was living in the city, and he gave it as a dowry for his daughter, the wife of Solomon.

¹⁷ Therefore, Solomon built up Gezer, and lower Beth-horon,

¹⁸ and Baalath, and Palmira in the land of the wilderness.

¹⁹ And all the towns which belonged to him, and which were without walls, he walled, along with the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen, and whatever was pleasing to him that he might build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in the entire land of his dominion.

²⁰ All the people who had remained of the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel,

²¹ their sons, who had remained in the land, namely, those whom the sons of Israel had not been able to destroy, Solomon made tributary, even to this day.

²² But from the sons of Israel, Solomon did not appoint anyone at all to serve, except the men of war, and his ministers, and leaders, and commanders, and the overseers of the chariots and the horses.

²³ Now there were five hundred fifty leaders in the first place over all the works of Solomon, and they had people subject to them, and these were given orders for the appointed works.

²⁴ And the daughter of Pharaoh went up from the city of David to her house, which Solomon had built for her. Then he built up Millo.

²⁵ Also, three times each year, Solomon offered holocausts and victims of peace offerings, upon the altar that he had built to the Lord, and he burned incense before the Lord. And the temple was perfected.

²⁶ And king Solomon made a navy at Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shores of the Red Sea, in the land of Idumea.

²⁷ And Hiram sent his servants to that navy, the sailors and those knowledgeable about the sea, with the servants of Solomon.

²⁸ And when they had gone to Ophir, taking from there four hundred twenty talents of gold, they brought it to king Solomon.