1When Solomon had finished building Yahweh’s house, the king’s palace, and everything else Solomon desired to build,
2Yahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, just as he had appeared to him in Gibeon.
3Yahweh said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your request that you made before me. I have made this house that you built holy, to put my Name there forever; my eyes and my heart will always be there.
4As for you, if you live your life before me with a sincere and upright heart, as your father David did, doing everything I have commanded you, and obey my rules and laws,
5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, just as I promised your father David, saying, ‘You will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’
6But if you or your children turn away from following me and do not keep my commands and rules that I have given you, but instead go and serve other gods and worship them,
7then I will remove Israel from the land I have given them. I will also cast this house, which I have made holy for my Name, out of my sight. Israel will become an example and a proverb among all peoples.
8Though this house is so grand, everyone who passes by it will be shocked and gasp, and they will ask, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this house?’
9And they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and instead embraced other gods, worshipped them, and served them. That is why Yahweh has brought all this disaster on them.’”
10After twenty years, during which Solomon built the two houses, Yahweh’s house and the king’s palace,
11King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee, because Hiram, the king of Tyre, had supplied Solomon with all the cedar, cypress, and gold he wanted.
12Hiram left Tyre to see the cities Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.
13He asked, "What kind of cities are these you've given me, my brother?" And he called them the land of Cabul, a name they still have today.
14Hiram then sent one hundred twenty talents of gold to the king.
15This is why King Solomon raised taxes: to build the house of Yahweh, his own palace, the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
16Earlier, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked Gezer, burned it down, killed the Canaanites who lived there, and given it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife.
17Solomon rebuilt Gezer, along with Lower Beth Horon,
18Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness.
19He also built all the supply cities he owned, cities for his chariots, cities for his horsemen, and whatever else he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and throughout all the lands he ruled.
20All the people remaining from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites,
21their descendants who were left in the land, and whom the Israelites had not been able to completely destroy—Solomon forced them into slave labor, which continues to this day.
22But Solomon did not make any Israelites slaves; instead, they were his soldiers, his officials, his commanders, and the officers for his chariots and horsemen.
23These were the five hundred fifty chief officers in charge of Solomon's work, overseeing the laborers.
24Later, Pharaoh's daughter moved from David's city to the palace Solomon built for her. Then he built the Millo.
25Three times a year, Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for Yahweh, burning incense with them on the altar before Yahweh. In this way, he completed the temple.
26King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, near Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.
27Hiram sent his own servants, who were experienced sailors, to sail with Solomon's servants on this fleet.
28They sailed to Ophir, brought back four hundred twenty talents of gold from there, and delivered it to King Solomon.