1
Solomon made an alliance with the king of Egypt by marrying his daughter. He brought her to live in David's City until he had finished building his palace, the Temple, and the wall around Jerusalem.
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A temple had not yet been built for the LORD, and so the people were still offering sacrifices at many different altars.
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Solomon loved the LORD and followed the instructions of his father David, but he also slaughtered animals and offered them as sacrifices on various altars.
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On one occasion he went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices because that was where the most famous altar was. He had offered hundreds of burnt offerings there in the past.
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That night the LORD appeared to him in a dream and asked him, "What would you like me to give you?"
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Solomon answered, "You always showed great love for my father David, your servant, and he was good, loyal, and honest in his relation with you. And you have continued to show him your great and constant love by giving him a son who today rules in his place.
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O LORD God, you have let me succeed my father as king, even though I am very young and don't know how to rule.
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Here I am among the people you have chosen to be your own, a people who are so many that they cannot be counted.
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So give me the wisdom I need to rule your people with justice and to know the difference between good and evil. Otherwise, how would I ever be able to rule this great people of yours?"
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The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this,
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and so he said to him, "Because you have asked for the wisdom to rule justly, instead of long life for yourself or riches or the death of your enemies,
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I will do what you have asked. I will give you more wisdom and understanding than anyone has ever had before or will ever have again.
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I will also give you what you have not asked for: all your life you will have wealth and honor, more than that of any other king.
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And if you obey me and keep my laws and commands, as your father David did, I will give you a long life."
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Solomon woke up and realized that God had spoken to him in the dream. Then he went to Jerusalem and stood in front of the LORD's Covenant Box and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD. After that he gave a feast for all his officials.
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One day two prostitutes came and presented themselves before King Solomon.
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One of them said, "Your Majesty, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a baby boy at home while she was there.
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Two days after my child was born, she also gave birth to a baby boy. Only the two of us were there in the house---no one else was present.
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Then one night she accidentally rolled over on her baby and smothered it.
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She got up during the night, took my son from my side while I was asleep, and carried him to her bed; then she put the dead child in my bed.
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The next morning, when I woke up and was going to nurse my baby, I saw that it was dead. I looked at it more closely and saw that it was not my child."
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But the other woman said, "No! The living child is mine, and the dead one is yours!" The first woman answered back, "No! The dead child is yours, and the living one is mine!" And so they argued before the king.
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Then King Solomon said, "Each of you claims that the living child is hers and that the dead child belongs to the other one."
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He sent for a sword, and when it was brought,
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he said, "Cut the living child in two and give each woman half of it."
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The real mother, her heart full of love for her son, said to the king, "Please, Your Majesty, don't kill the child! Give it to her!" But the other woman said, "Don't give it to either of us; go on and cut it in two."
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Then Solomon said, "Don't kill the child! Give it to the first woman---she is its real mother."
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When the people of Israel heard of Solomon's decision, they were all filled with deep respect for him, because they knew then that God had given him the wisdom to settle disputes fairly.
1
Solomon, the son of King David, took firm control of the kingdom of Israel, and the LORD his God blessed him and made him very powerful.
2
King Solomon gave an order to all the officers in charge of units of a thousand men and of a hundred men, all the government officials, all the heads of families, and all the rest of the people,
3
commanding them to go with him to the place of worship at Gibeon. They went there because that was where the Tent of the LORD's presence was located, which Moses, the LORD's servant, had made in the wilderness.
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(The Covenant Box, however, was in Jerusalem, kept in a tent which King David had set up when he brought the Box from Kiriath Jearim.)
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The bronze altar which had been made by Bezalel, the son of Uri and grandson of Hur, was also in Gibeon in front of the Tent of the LORD's presence. King Solomon and all the people worshiped the LORD there.
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In front of the Tent the king worshiped the LORD by offering sacrifices on the bronze altar; he had a thousand animals killed and burned whole on it.
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That night God appeared to Solomon and asked, "What would you like me to give you?"
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Solomon answered, "You always showed great love for my father David, and now you have let me succeed him as king.
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O LORD God, fulfill the promise you made to my father. You have made me king over a people who are so many that they cannot be counted,
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so give me the wisdom and knowledge I need to rule over them. Otherwise, how would I ever be able to rule this great people of yours?"
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God replied to Solomon, "You have made the right choice. Instead of asking for wealth or treasure or fame or the death of your enemies or even for long life for yourself, you have asked for wisdom and knowledge so that you can rule my people, over whom I have made you king.
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I will give you wisdom and knowledge. And in addition, I will give you more wealth, treasure, and fame than any king has ever had before or will ever have again."
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So Solomon left the place of worship at Gibeon, where the Tent of the LORD's presence was, and returned to Jerusalem. There he ruled over Israel.
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He built up a force of fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand cavalry horses. Some of them he kept in Jerusalem, and the rest he stationed in various other cities.
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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.
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The king's agents controlled the export of horses from Musri and Cilicia,
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and the export of chariots from Egypt. They supplied the Hittite and Syrian kings with horses and chariots, selling chariots for 600 pieces of silver each and horses for 150 each.
1
Listen, my people, to my teaching, and pay attention to what I say.
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I am going to use wise sayings and explain mysteries from the past,
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things we have heard and known, things that our ancestors told us.
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We will not keep them from our children; we will tell the next generation about the LORD's power and his great deeds and the wonderful things he has done.
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He gave laws to the people of Israel and commandments to the descendants of Jacob. He instructed our ancestors to teach his laws to their children,
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so that the next generation might learn them and in turn should tell their children.
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In this way they also will put their trust in God and not forget what he has done, but always obey his commandments.
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They will not be like their ancestors, a rebellious and disobedient people, whose trust in God was never firm and who did not remain faithful to him.
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The Ephraimites, armed with bows and arrows, ran away on the day of battle.
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They did not keep their covenant with God; they refused to obey his law.
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They forgot what he had done, the miracles they had seen him perform.
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While their ancestors watched, God performed miracles in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
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He divided the sea and took them through it; he made the waters stand like walls.
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By day he led them with a cloud and all night long with the light of a fire.
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He split rocks open in the desert and gave them water from the depths.
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He caused a stream to come out of the rock and made water flow like a river.
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But they continued to sin against God, and in the desert they rebelled against the Most High.
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They deliberately put God to the test by demanding the food they wanted.
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They spoke against God and said, "Can God supply food in the desert?
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It is true that he struck the rock, and water flowed out in a torrent; but can he also provide us with bread and give his people meat?"
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And so the LORD was angry when he heard them; he attacked his people with fire, and his anger against them grew,
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because they had no faith in him and did not believe that he would save them.
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But he spoke to the sky above and commanded its doors to open;
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he gave them grain from heaven, by sending down manna for them to eat.
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So they ate the food of angels, and God gave them all they wanted.
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He also caused the east wind to blow, and by his power he stirred up the south wind;
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and to his people he sent down birds, as many as the grains of sand on the shore;
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they fell in the middle of the camp all around the tents.
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So the people ate and were satisfied; God gave them what they wanted.
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But they had not yet satisfied their craving and were still eating,
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when God became angry with them and killed their strongest men, the best young men of Israel.
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In spite of all this the people kept sinning; in spite of his miracles they did not trust him.
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So he ended their days like a breath and their lives with sudden disaster.
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Whenever he killed some of them, the rest would turn to him; they would repent and pray earnestly to him.
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They remembered that God was their protector, that the Almighty came to their aid.
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But their words were all lies; nothing they said was sincere.
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They were not loyal to him; they were not faithful to their covenant with him.
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But God was merciful to his people. He forgave their sin and did not destroy them. Many times he held back his anger and restrained his fury.
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He remembered that they were only mortal beings, like a wind that blows by and is gone.
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How often they rebelled against him in the desert; how many times they made him sad!
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Again and again they put God to the test and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.
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They forgot his great power and the day when he saved them from their enemies
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and performed his mighty acts and miracles in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
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He turned the rivers into blood, and the Egyptians had no water to drink.
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He sent flies among them, that tormented them, and frogs that ruined their land.
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He sent locusts to eat their crops and to destroy their fields.
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He killed their grapevines with hail and their fig trees with frost.
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He killed their cattle with hail and their flocks with lightning.
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He caused them great distress by pouring out his anger and fierce rage, which came as messengers of death.
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He did not restrain his anger or spare their lives, but killed them with a plague.
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He killed the first-born sons of all the families of Egypt.
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Then he led his people out like a shepherd and guided them through the desert.
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He led them safely, and they were not afraid; but the sea came rolling over their enemies.
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He brought them to his holy land, to the mountains which he himself conquered.
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He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced; he divided their land among the tribes of Israel and gave their homes to his people.
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But they rebelled against Almighty God and put him to the test. They did not obey his commandments,
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but were rebellious and disloyal like their ancestors, unreliable as a crooked arrow.
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They angered him with their heathen places of worship, and with their idols they made him furious.
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God was angry when he saw it, so he rejected his people completely.
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He abandoned his tent in Shiloh, the home where he had lived among us.
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He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory.
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He was angry with his own people and let them be killed by their enemies.
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Young men were killed in war, and young women had no one to marry.
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Priests died by violence, and their widows were not allowed to mourn.
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At last the Lord woke up as though from sleep; he was like a strong man excited by wine.
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He drove his enemies back in lasting and shameful defeat.
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But he rejected the descendants of Joseph; he did not select the tribe of Ephraim.
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Instead he chose the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he dearly loves.
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There he built his Temple like his home in heaven; he made it firm like the earth itself, secure for all time.
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He chose his servant David; he took him from the pastures,
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where he looked after his flocks, and he made him king of Israel, the shepherd of the people of God.
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David took care of them with unselfish devotion and led them with skill.
1
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to be with him: I beg you, my friends,
2
not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter.
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Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell.
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He will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God's Temple and claim to be God.
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Don't you remember? I told you all this while I was with you.
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Yet there is something that keeps this from happening now, and you know what it is. At the proper time, then, the Wicked One will appear.
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The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who holds it back is taken out of the way.
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Then the Wicked One will be revealed, but when the Lord Jesus comes, he will kill him with the breath from his mouth and destroy him with his dazzling presence.
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The Wicked One will come with the power of Satan and perform all kinds of false miracles and wonders,
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and use every kind of wicked deceit on those who will perish. They will perish because they did not welcome and love the truth so as to be saved.
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And so God sends the power of error to work in them so that they believe what is false.
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The result is that all who have not believed the truth, but have taken pleasure in sin, will be condemned.
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We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth.
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God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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So then, our friends, stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you, both in our preaching and in our letter.
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May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us unfailing courage and a firm hope,
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encourage you and strengthen you to always do and say what is good.
