1 Kings 9:10-28

Modern English Version

Solomon’s Other Activities^(A)

¹⁰ When twenty years had passed since Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house ¹¹ (now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar and fir trees, along with gold, as he had requested), King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹² Hiram came out from Tyre to see the cities Solomon had given him, and he was not pleased with them. ¹³ He said, “What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” And he called them the land of Kabul to this day. ¹⁴ Hiram sent to the king one hundred and twenty talents^[a] of gold.

¹⁵ This is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted to build the house of the Lord and his own house, Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. ¹⁶ For Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had gone up against and conquered Gezer and burned it with fire and slain the Canaanites that lived in the city and given it as a present to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷ Solomon built Gezer and Lower Beth Horon ¹⁸ and Baalath and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land, ¹⁹ and all the storage cities that Solomon had, cities for his chariots and cities for his horsemen and all that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion.

²⁰ All the people who were left of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not children of Israel, ²¹ the descendants of those who were left in the land and whom the people of Israel were not able to utterly destroy, were conscripted by Solomon for slave labor to this day. ²² But Solomon did not make any children of Israel into slaves, but instead used them as men of war, as his servants, his leaders, his captains, rulers of his chariots, and his horsemen. ²³ These were the chief officers over Solomon’s work, five hundred and fifty, who ruled over the people who did the labor.

²⁴ But Pharaoh’s daughter moved out of the City of David to her house which Solomon had built for her, and he then built Millo.

²⁵ Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the Lord, and he burned incense on the altar that was before the Lord. So he finished the house.

²⁶ King Solomon built a fleet of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Elath on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. ²⁷ Hiram sent shipmen who had knowledge of the sea to serve alongside Solomon’s men. ²⁸ They went to Ophir and acquired four hundred and twenty talents^[b] of gold there and brought it to King Solomon.