Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and his own palace, along with all the other projects he desired to undertake, the Lord appeared to him a second time. The Lord said, "I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me: I have consecrated this house, which you have built, to place my name there forever; and my eyes and heart will be there perpetually.

If you will walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and keep my statutes and judgments, then I will establish your kingdom over Israel forever. Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised to David your father, saying, "There shall not fail from you a man on the throne of Israel.

But if you or your children turn away from following me and do not keep my commandments and statutes that I have set before you, but instead go after other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them; and I will cast out of my sight both this house which I have consecrated to bear my name and all who are in it. And Israel will become a byword and a proverb among all peoples.

And at this house, which is so grand, everyone who passes by will be shocked and whisper in dismay, wondering why the Lord has brought such judgment upon this land. Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and instead took hold of other gods and worshiped them, the Lord has brought upon them all this evil.

At the end of twenty years, when Solomon had completed building the house of the Lord and his own palace, Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar trees, fir trees, and gold according to all his desire. King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee, but they did not meet with his approval.

Solomon asked, "What cities have you given me, my brother?" He called them the land of Cabul to this day. Hiram sent to the king sixty talents of gold. King Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to build the house of the Lord, his own house, Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burned it with fire, slain its Canaanite inhabitants, and given it as a gift to his daughter, Solomon's wife. Solomon built Gezer and Bethhoron the lower, Baalath and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land, all the cities of storage that he had, along with cities for his chariots and horsemen.

All the remaining people of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites who were not part of Israel, Solomon forced to provide labor and tribute up to this day. He made no slaves from among the children of Israel, but they served as warriors, officials, princes, captains, and leaders of his chariots and horsemen.

These were the chief officers who oversaw Solomon's projects, 550 men in charge of the people working on the construction. Pharaoh's daughter came up from the city of David to her house, which Solomon had built for her, and then he built Millo.

Three times a year, Solomon would offer burnt and peace offerings on the altar he had built to the Lord, burning incense before him as he completed the house. King Solomon built a fleet of ships in Eziongeber, which is near Eloth on the Red Sea coast in Edom.

Hiram sent his experienced sailors, who were familiar with the sea, along with Solomon's servants, and they came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, which they brought to king Solomon.