Daily Text and Bible Reading: Sunday, April 20 [Press play below]

9.1 As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of Jehovah, the house of the king, and everything Solomon desired to make,
9.2 Jehovah appeared to Solomon a second time, just as he had appeared to him in Gibeon.
9.3 Jehovah said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your request for favor that you made before me. I have sanctified this house that you built by permanently putting my name there, and my eyes and my heart will always be there.
9.4 And you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with integrity of heart and with uprightness, by doing everything I have commanded you, and you obey my regulations and my judgments,
9.5 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, just as I promised your father David, saying, ‘There will never fail to be a man of your line sitting on the throne of Israel.’
9.6 But if you and your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have put before you, and you go and serve other gods and bow down to them,
9.7 I will cut Israel off from the surface of the land that I have given to them, and the house that I have sanctified for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become an object of scorn and a cause for ridicule among all the peoples.
9.8 And this house will become heaps of ruins. Everyone passing by it will stare in amazement and will whistle and say, ‘Why did Jehovah do that to this land and this house?’
9.9 Then they will say, ‘It was because they abandoned Jehovah their God, who had brought their forefathers out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and bowed down to them and served them. That is why Jehovah brought all this calamity on them.’”
9.10 At the end of 20 years, during which Solomon built the two houses, the house of Jehovah and the house of the king,
9.11 Hiram the king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and juniper timbers and with as much gold as he desired, and King Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the land of Galilee.
9.12 So Hiram went out from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, but he was not satisfied with them.
9.13 He said: “What sort of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they came to be called the Land of Cabul down to this day.
9.14 In the meantime, Hiram sent to the king 120 talents of gold.
9.15 This is the account of those whom King Solomon conscripted for forced labor to build the house of Jehovah, his own house, the Mound, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
9.16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had come up and captured Gezer and had burned it with fire, and he had also killed the Canaanites dwelling in the city. So he gave it as a parting gift to his daughter, the wife of Solomon.)
9.17 Solomon built up Gezer, Lower Beth-horon,
9.18 Baalath, and Tamar in the wilderness, within the land,
9.19 as well as all of Solomon’s storage cities, the chariot cities, the cities for the horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
9.20 As for all the people who were left from the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not part of the people of Israel,
9.21 their descendants who were left in the land—those whom the Israelites had been unable to devote to destruction—were conscripted by Solomon for forced labor as slaves until this day.
9.22 But Solomon did not make any of the Israelites slaves, for they were his warriors, servants, princes, adjutants, and the chiefs of his charioteers and horsemen.
9.23 There were 550 chiefs of the deputies who were over the work of Solomon, the foremen over the people who were doing the work.
9.24 But Pharaoh’s daughter came up from the City of David to her own house that he had built for her; then he built the Mound.
9.25 Three times a year Solomon offered up burnt sacrifices and communion sacrifices on the altar that he had built for Jehovah, also making sacrificial smoke on the altar, which was before Jehovah, so he completed the house.
9.26 King Solomon also made a fleet of ships in Ezion-geber, which is by Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.
9.27 Hiram sent his own servants with the fleet of ships, experienced seamen, to serve along with the servants of Solomon.
9.28 They went to Ophir and took from there 420 talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon.

10.1 Now the queen of Sheba heard the report about Solomon in connection with the name of Jehovah, so she came to test him with perplexing questions.
10.2 She arrived in Jerusalem with a very impressive entourage, with camels carrying balsam oil and great quantities of gold and precious stones. She went in to Solomon and spoke to him about everything that was close to her heart.
10.3 Solomon then answered all her questions. There was nothing too difficult for the king to explain to her.
10.4 When the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he built,
10.5 the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the table service of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, and his burnt sacrifices that he regularly offered up at the house of Jehovah, she was left completely breathless.
10.6 So she said to the king: “The report that I heard in my own land about your achievements and about your wisdom was true.
10.7 But I did not put faith in the reports until I had come and had seen it with my own eyes. And look! I had not been told the half. You have far surpassed in wisdom and prosperity the report that I heard.
10.8 Happy are your men, and happy are your servants who stand before you constantly, listening to your wisdom!
10.9 May Jehovah your God be praised, who has taken pleasure in you by putting you on the throne of Israel. Because of Jehovah’s everlasting love for Israel, he appointed you as king to administer justice and righteousness.”
10.10 Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold and a great amount of balsam oil and precious stones. Never again was such a quantity of balsam oil brought in as what the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
10.11 Hiram’s fleet of ships that carried gold from Ophir also brought from Ophir algum timbers in very great quantity, and precious stones.
10.12 The king made from the algum timbers supports for the house of Jehovah and for the king’s house, as well as harps and stringed instruments for the singers. Such algum timbers have never again been brought in or seen down to this day.
10.13 King Solomon also gave the queen of Sheba whatever she desired and asked for, in addition to what he gave her out of his own generosity. After that she left and returned to her own land, together with her servants.
10.14 And the weight of the gold that came to Solomon in one year amounted to 666 talents of gold,
10.15 besides that from the merchants and the profit from the traders and from all the kings of the Arabs and the governors of the land.
10.16 King Solomon made 200 large shields of alloyed gold (600 shekels of gold went on each shield)
10.17 and 300 bucklers of alloyed gold (three minas of gold went on each buckler). Then the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.
10.18 The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with refined gold.
10.19 There were six steps to the throne, and the throne had a round canopy behind it, and there were armrests on both sides of the seat, and two lions were standing beside the armrests.
10.20 And there were 12 lions standing on the six steps, one at each end of the six steps. No other kingdom had made anything like it.
10.21 All the drinking vessels of King Solomon were of gold, and all the utensils of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. There was nothing made of silver, for silver was considered as nothing in the days of Solomon.
10.22 For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish on the sea along with Hiram’s fleet. Once every three years, the fleet of ships of Tarshish would come loaded with gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
10.23 So King Solomon was greater than all the other kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
10.24 And people of all the earth sought an audience with Solomon to hear his wisdom that God had put in his heart.
10.25 They would each bring a gift—articles of silver, articles of gold, garments, armor, balsam oil, horses, and mules—and this continued year after year.
10.26 And Solomon kept accumulating chariots and horses; he had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, and he kept them stationed in the chariot cities and close by the king in Jerusalem.
10.27 The king made the silver in Jerusalem as plentiful as the stones, and cedarwood as plentiful as the sycamore trees in the Shephelah.
10.28 The horses of Solomon had been imported from Egypt, and the company of the king’s merchants would obtain the horses in droves for one price.
10.29 Each chariot imported from Egypt cost 600 silver pieces, and a horse cost 150; in turn, they would export them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.