1 Kings 3

²⁴As soon as Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace that Solomon had built for her, he built the supporting terraces.

¹King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women.

¹¹Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh up from the City of David to the palace he had built for her. For he said, “My wife must not live in the house of David king of Israel, because the places the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.”

¹Now Solomon purposed to build a house for the Name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

²So he conscripted 70,000 porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors.

⁷Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion (that is, the City of David).

¹⁵This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the Lord, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

⁴³And Jehoshaphat walked in all the ways of his father Asa; he did not turn away from them, but did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. The high places, however, were not removed; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

¹⁷Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

²Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.

³Tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, burn up their Asherah poles, cut down the idols of their gods, and wipe out their names from every place.

³⁰I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built the house for Him.

⁴⁸However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

³“As you are well aware, due to the wars waged on all sides against my father David, he could not build a house for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord had put his enemies under his feet.

³But the one who loves God is known by God.

²³Love the Lord, all His saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but fully repays the arrogant.

¹⁶For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and increase, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

⁵And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

⁶Solomon replied, “You have shown much loving devotion to Your servant, my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness, righteousness, and uprightness of heart. And You have maintained this loving devotion by giving him a son to sit on his throne this very day.

¹²And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

³And Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon because it was the location of God’s Tent of Meeting, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.

³⁹And David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high place in Gibeon

⁵And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.

⁶Solomon offered sacrifices there before the Lord on the bronze altar at the Tent of Meeting, where he offered a thousand burnt offerings.

⁷That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask, and I will give it to you!”

²⁹For the tabernacle of the Lord that Moses had made in the wilderness and the altar of burnt offering were presently at the high place in Gibeon,

¹⁶Lebanon is not sufficient for fuel, nor its animals enough for a burnt offering.

²the Lord appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

⁵Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

⁶But he must ask in faith, without doubting, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

⁶He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will reveal Myself to him in a vision; I will speak to him in a dream.

⁷That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask, and I will give it to you!”

⁸Solomon replied to God: “You have shown much loving devotion to my father David, and You have made me king in his place.

¹³And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

¹⁴If you ask Me for anything in My name, I will do it.

³⁶“What do you want Me to do for you?” He inquired.

⁴And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

⁴⁸saying, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel! Today He has provided one to sit on my throne, and my eyes have seen it.’”

⁴and so that the Lord may fulfill His promise to me: ‘If your descendants take heed to walk faithfully before Me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

¹¹You will be enriched in every way to be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will produce thanksgiving to God.

⁸Now then, you are to tell My servant David that this is what the Lord of Hosts says: I took you from the pasture, from following the flock, to be the ruler over My people Israel.

⁹I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make for you a name like that of the greatest in the land.

³“Please, O Lord, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

¹Then King David said to the whole assembly, “My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced. The task is great because this palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.

¹⁷who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

⁶“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!”

³“Truly I tell you,” He said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

⁴Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

³²You will be driven away from mankind to live with the beasts of the field, and you will feed on grass like an ox. And seven times will pass you by, until you acknowledge that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes.”

²Even in times past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And to you the Lord said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

⁵And the Lord took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁶I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted.

²So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan and bring me a report, so that I may know their number.”

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

²³David did not count the men aged twenty or under, because the Lord had said that He would make Israel as numerous as the stars of the sky.

²⁴Joab son of Zeruiah began to count the men but did not finish. For because of this census wrath came upon Israel, and the number was not entered in the Book of the Chronicles of King David.

⁷¹from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

⁵Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.

¹⁶How much better to acquire wisdom than gold! To gain understanding is more desirable than silver.

³⁰I can do nothing by Myself; I judge only as I hear. And My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

³if you truly call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silver and search it out like hidden treasure,

¹⁷And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king bring me rest, for my lord the king is able to discern good and evil, just like the angel of God. May the Lord your God be with you.’”

⁸The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.

⁹Therefore give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”

²You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.

³And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

³¹Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is attained along the path of righteousness.

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.

⁶Many ask, “Who can show us the good?” Shine the light of Your face upon us, O Lord.

²¹“What do you want?” He inquired. She answered, “Declare that in Your kingdom one of these two sons of mine may sit at Your right hand, and the other at Your left.”

²²“You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus replied. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” “We can,” the brothers answered.

¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

¹⁵And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.

¹⁶I said to myself, “Behold, I have grown and increased in wisdom beyond all those before me who were over Jerusalem, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”

⁴²The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here.

¹²And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

²³So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.

²⁴The whole world sought an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

²⁸When all Israel heard of the judgment the king had given, they stood in awe of him, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice.

²⁰Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

¹⁶Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.

¹¹For the Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord gives grace and glory; He withholds no good thing from those who walk with integrity.

¹²O Lord of Hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in You!

³²He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?

²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Solomon’s provisions for a single day were thirty cors of fine flour, sixty cors of meal,

²for they will add length to your days, years and peace to your life.

¹⁶With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.”

⁵For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything the Lord commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

⁷“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘If you walk in My ways and keep My instructions, then you will govern My house and will also have charge of My courts; and I will give you a place among these who are standing here.

²And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

³And keep the charge of the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to keep His statutes, commandments, ordinances, and decrees, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you turn,

⁴and so that the Lord may fulfill His promise to me: ‘If your descendants take heed to walk faithfully before Me with all their heart and soul, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

⁷And the thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven plump, ripe ones. Then Pharaoh awoke and realized it was a dream.

⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the Lord our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

³In the third year of his reign, Xerxes held a feast for all his officials and servants. The military leaders of Persia and Media were there, along with the nobles and princes of the provinces.

¹Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.

¹So they brought the ark of God and placed it inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And they presented burnt offerings and peace offerings before God.

²When David had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord.

¹“If one’s offering is a peace offering and he offers an animal from the herd, whether male or female, he must present it without blemish before the Lord.

²He is to lay his hand on the head of the offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall splatter the blood on all sides of the altar.

¹⁶“Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me to judge between one man and another, and I make known to them the statutes and laws of God.”

¹Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead was his father.

²⁹You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity.

¹Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim, saying, “Go, inspect the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

²the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and the whole congregation, and said,

¹⁷No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute.

²⁰Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

²⁵But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away.

¹³Then there are those who rebel against the light, not knowing its ways or staying on its paths.

¹⁴When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy; in the night he is like a thief.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”—

⁷She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

²³“Do what you think is best,” her husband Elkanah replied, “and stay here until you have weaned him. Only may the Lord confirm His word.” So Hannah stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

⁸do not bring hastily to court. Otherwise, what will you do in the end when your neighbor puts you to shame?

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

²⁰Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me, a delightful child? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the Lord.

¹⁷If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?

³⁰Joseph hurried out because he was moved to tears for his brother, and he went to a private room to weep.

⁸How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

¹Therefore if you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,

³in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁹Therefore give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours?”

¹⁰Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had made this request.

⁴⁷The king said to Daniel, “Your God is truly the God of gods and Lord of kings, the Revealer of Mysteries, since you were able to reveal this mystery.”

²⁴but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

¹⁹Wisdom makes the wise man stronger than ten rulers in a city.

²¹He changes the times and seasons; He removes kings and establishes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.