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The Blue Letter Bible

1 Kings 9 :: New Living Translation (NLT)

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The LORD’s Response to Solomon
(2Ch 7:12–22 )
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:1 - So Solomon finished building the Temple of the LORD, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:2 - Then the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had done before at Gibeon.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:3 - The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your petition. I have set this Temple apart to be holy—this place you have built where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:4 - “As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness, as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations,
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:5 - then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever. For I made this promise to your father, David: ‘One of your descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel.’
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:6 - “But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods,
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:7 - then I will uproot Israel from this land that I have given them. I will reject this Temple that I have made holy to honor my name. I will make Israel an object of mockery and ridicule among the nations.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:8 - And though this Temple is impressive now, all who pass by will be appalled and will shake their heads in amazement. They will ask, ‘Why did the LORD do such terrible things to this land and to this Temple?’
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:9 - “And the answer will be, ‘Because his people abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and they worshiped other gods instead and bowed down to them. That is why the LORD has brought all these disasters on them.’”
Solomon’s Agreement with Hiram
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:10 - It took Solomon twenty years to build the LORD’s Temple and his own royal palace. At the end of that time,
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:11 - he gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyre. (Hiram had previously provided all the cedar and cypress timber and gold that Solomon had requested.)
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:12 - But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the towns Solomon had given him, he was not at all pleased with them.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:13 - “What kind of towns are these, my brother?” he asked. So Hiram called that area Cabul (which means “worthless”), as it is still known today.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:14 - Nevertheless, Hiram paid[fn] Solomon 9,000 pounds[fn] of gold.
Solomon’s Many Achievements
(2Ch 8:3–16 )
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:15 - This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces,[fn] the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:16 - (Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down. He gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she married Solomon.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:17 - So Solomon rebuilt the city of Gezer.) He also built up the towns of Lower Beth-horon,
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:18 - Baalath, and Tamar[fn] in the wilderness within his land.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:19 - He built towns as supply centers and constructed towns where his chariots and horses[fn] could be stationed. He built everything he desired in Jerusalem and Lebanon and throughout his entire realm.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:20 - There were still some people living in the land who were not Israelites, including Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:21 - These were descendants of the nations whom the people of Israel had not completely destroyed.[fn] So Solomon conscripted them for his labor force, and they serve in the labor force to this day.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:22 - But Solomon did not conscript any of the Israelites for forced labor. Instead, he assigned them to serve as fighting men, government officials, officers and captains in his army, commanders of his chariots, and charioteers.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:23 - Solomon appointed 550 of them to supervise the people working on his various projects.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:24 - Solomon moved his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter, from the City of David to the new palace he had built for her. Then he constructed the supporting terraces.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:25 - Three times each year Solomon presented burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the LORD. He also burned incense to the LORD. And so he finished the work of building the Temple.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:26 - King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, a port near Elath[fn] in the land of Edom, along the shore of the Red Sea.[fn]
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:27 - Hiram sent experienced crews of sailors to sail the ships with Solomon’s men.
Unchecked Copy Box1Ki 9:28 - They sailed to Ophir and brought back to Solomon some sixteen tons[fn] of gold.
NLT Footnotes
Or For Hiram had paid.
Hebrew 120 talents [4,000 kilograms].
Hebrew the millo; also in 9:24. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.
An alternate reading in the Masoretic Text reads Tadmor.
Or and charioteers.
The Hebrew term used here refers to the complete consecration of things or people to the LORD, either by destroying them or by giving them as an offering.
As in Greek version (see also 2 Kgs 14:22; 16:6); Hebrew reads Eloth, a variant spelling of Elath.
Hebrew sea of reeds.
Hebrew 420 talents [14 metric tons].
NLT

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1 Kings Chapter 9 — Additional Translations: