Solomon Turns Away from God

11 ^(A)Solomon loved many foreign women. Besides the daughter of the king of Egypt he married Hittite women and women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon. ^2 (B)He married them even though the Lord had commanded the Israelites not to intermarry with these people, because they would cause the Israelites to give their loyalty to other gods. ³ Solomon married seven hundred princesses and also had three hundred concubines. They made him turn away from God, ⁴ and by the time he was old they had led him into the worship of foreign gods. He was not faithful to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. ⁵ He worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon, and Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁶ He sinned against the Lord and was not true to him as his father David had been. ⁷ On the mountain east of Jerusalem he built a place to worship Chemosh, the disgusting god of Moab, and a place to worship Molech, the disgusting god of Ammon. ⁸ He also built places of worship where all his foreign wives could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods.

^17 (A)The king is not to have many wives, because this would make him turn away from the Lord; and he is not to make himself rich with silver and gold.

King Solomon's Wealth^(A)

¹⁴ Every year King Solomon received over twenty-five tons of gold, ¹⁵ in addition to the taxes^[a] paid by merchants, the profits from trade, and tribute paid by the Arabian kings and the governors of the Israelite districts.

¹⁶ Solomon made two hundred large shields and had each one overlaid with almost fifteen pounds of gold. ¹⁷ He also made three hundred smaller shields, overlaying each one of them with nearly four pounds of gold. He had all these shields placed in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon.^[b]

¹⁸ He also had a large throne made. Part of it was covered with ivory and the rest of it was covered with the finest gold. ^19-20 The throne had six steps leading up to it, with the figure of a lion at each end of every step, a total of twelve lions. At the back of the throne was the figure of a bull's head, and beside each of the two armrests was the figure of a lion. No throne like this had ever existed in any other kingdom.

²¹ All of Solomon's drinking cups were made of gold, and all the utensils in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. No silver was used, since it was not considered valuable in Solomon's day. ²² He had a fleet of ocean-going ships sailing with Hiram's fleet. Every three years his fleet would return, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.

^27 (A)During his reign silver was as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar was as plentiful as ordinary sycamore in the foothills of Judah.

¹⁵ During his reign silver and gold became as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar was as plentiful as ordinary sycamore in the foothills of Judah.