9People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the
Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the
Lord brought all this disaster on them.’”
Solomon’s Other Activities
10At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings—the temple of the Lord and the royal palace— 11King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and pine and gold he wanted. 12But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13“What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Cabul, a name they have to this day. 14Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents of gold.
15Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. 16(Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, 18Baalath, and Tadmor in the desert, within his land, 19as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.
20All the people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites), 21that is, their descendants remaining in the land, whom the Israelites could not exterminate—these Solomon conscripted for his slave labor force, as it is to this day. 22But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. 23They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon’s projects—550 officials supervising the men who did the work.
24After Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the supporting terraces.
25Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, burning incense before the Lord along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.
26King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea. 27And Hiram sent his men—sailors who knew the sea—to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. 28They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.
