Daily Text and Bible Reading: Monday, May 20 [Press play below]

7.1 Now as soon as Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from the heavens and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and Jehovah’s glory filled the house.
7.2 The priests were unable to enter the house of Jehovah because Jehovah’s glory had filled the house of Jehovah.
7.3 And all the people of Israel were looking on when the fire came down and the glory of Jehovah was upon the house, and they bowed low with their faces to the ground on the pavement and prostrated themselves and thanked Jehovah, “for he is good; his loyal love endures forever.”
7.4 Now the king and all the people offered sacrifices before Jehovah.
7.5 King Solomon offered the sacrifice of 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. Thus the king and all the people inaugurated the house of the true God.
7.6 The priests were standing at their posts of duty, as were the Levites who had the instruments used to accompany the song to Jehovah. (King David had made these instruments for giving thanks to Jehovah—“for his loyal love endures forever”—when David would offer praise with them.) And the priests were loudly sounding the trumpets in front of them, while all the Israelites were standing.
7.7 Then Solomon sanctified the middle of the courtyard that was before the house of Jehovah, for there he had to offer up the burnt offerings and the fat pieces of the communion sacrifices, because the copper altar that Solomon had made could not contain the burnt sacrifices, the grain offerings, and the fat pieces.
7.8 At that time Solomon held the festival for seven days together with all Israel, a very great congregation from Lebo-hamath down to the Wadi of Egypt.
7.9 But on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, because they had held the inauguration of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days.
7.10 Then on the 23rd day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their homes rejoicing and feeling glad of heart over the goodness that Jehovah had shown to David and Solomon and Israel his people.
7.11 Thus Solomon finished the house of Jehovah and the house of the king; and everything that came into Solomon’s heart to do regarding the house of Jehovah and his own house he accomplished successfully.
7.12 Jehovah then appeared to Solomon during the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.
7.13 When I shut up the heavens and there is no rain and when I command the grasshoppers to devour the land and if I send a pestilence among my people,
7.14 if my people on whom my name has been called humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn away from their evil ways, then I will hear from the heavens and forgive their sin and heal their land.
7.15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to prayer at this place.
7.16 And now I have chosen and sanctified this house so that my name may be there permanently, and my eyes and my heart will always be there.
7.17 “And you, if you walk before me as your father David walked by doing everything I have commanded you, and you obey my regulations and my judgments,
7.18 then I will establish the throne of your kingship, just as I made a covenant with your father David, saying, ‘There will never fail to be a man of your line ruling over Israel.’
7.19 But if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have put before you and you go and serve other gods and bow down to them,
7.20 I will uproot Israel from my land that I have given them, and this house that I have sanctified for my name I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it an object of scorn and a cause for ridicule among all the peoples.
7.21 And this house will become heaps of ruins. Everyone passing by it will stare in amazement and will say, ‘Why did Jehovah do that to this land and this house?’
7.22 Then they will say, ‘It was because they abandoned Jehovah the God of their forefathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and bowed down to them and served them. That is why he brought all this calamity on them.’”

8.1 At the end of 20 years, during which Solomon built the house of Jehovah and his own house,
8.2 Solomon rebuilt the cities that Hiram had given Solomon and settled Israelites there.
8.3 Furthermore, Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it.
8.4 Then he built up Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage cities that he had built in Hamath.
8.5 He also built up Upper Beth-horon and Lower Beth-horon, fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars,
8.6 and Baalath as well as all of Solomon’s storage cities, all 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.
8.7 As for all the people who were left from the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not part of Israel,
8.8 their descendants who were left in the land—those whom the Israelites had not exterminated—were conscripted by Solomon for forced labor until this day.
8.9 But Solomon did not make any of the Israelites slaves for his work, for they were his warriors, the chiefs of his adjutants, and the chiefs of his charioteers and horsemen.
8.10 There were 250 chiefs of the deputies of King Solomon, the foremen over the people.
8.11 Solomon also brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the City of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said: “Although she is my wife, she should not dwell in the house of King David of Israel, for the places to which the Ark of Jehovah has come are holy.”
8.12 Then Solomon offered up burnt sacrifices to Jehovah on the altar of Jehovah that he had built in front of the porch.
8.13 He followed the daily routine and made offerings according to the commandment of Moses for the Sabbaths, the new moons, and the appointed festivals three times in the year—the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths.
8.14 Further, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their services according to the rule of his father David, and the Levites for their posts of duty, to praise and to minister in the presence of the priests according to the daily routine, and the gatekeepers in their divisions for the different gates, for such was the commandment of David, the man of the true God.
8.15 And they did not deviate from the king’s commandment to the priests and the Levites concerning any matter or concerning the storehouses.
8.16 So Solomon’s work was all well-organized, from the day the foundation of the house of Jehovah was laid until it was finished. So the house of Jehovah was completed.
8.17 It was then that Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth on the seashore in the land of Edom.
8.18 Hiram sent him ships and experienced seamen by means of his own servants. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir and took from there 450 talents of gold and brought it to King Solomon.

9.1 Now the queen of Sheba heard the report about Solomon, so she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with perplexing questions. She was accompanied by 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.
9.2 Solomon then answered all her questions. There was nothing too difficult for Solomon to explain to her.
9.3 When the queen of Sheba had seen Solomon’s wisdom, the house that he built,
9.4 the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the table service of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers and their attire, and his burnt sacrifices that he regularly offered up at the house of Jehovah, she was left completely breathless.
9.5 So she said to the king: “The report that I heard in my own land about your achievements and about your wisdom was true.
9.6 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 of your great wisdom. You have far surpassed the report that I heard.
9.7 Happy are your men, and happy are your servants who stand before you constantly, listening to your wisdom!
9.8 May Jehovah your God be praised, who has taken pleasure in you by putting you on his throne as king for Jehovah your God. Because your God loves Israel, in order to make it continue forever, he appointed you over it as king to administer justice and righteousness.”
9.9 Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold and a great quantity of balsam oil and precious stones. Never again was such balsam oil brought in as what the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
9.10 Moreover, the servants of Hiram and the servants of Solomon who brought gold from Ophir also brought algum timbers and precious stones.
9.11 The king made from the algum timbers stairs for the house of Jehovah and for the king’s house, as well as harps and stringed instruments for the singers. Nothing like them had ever been seen before in the land of Judah.
9.12 King Solomon also gave the queen of Sheba whatever she desired and asked for, more than what she had brought to the king. Then she left and returned to her own land, together with her servants.
9.13 And the weight of the gold that came to Solomon in one year amounted to 666 talents of gold,
9.14 besides that brought in by the merchants and the traders and all the kings of the Arabs and the governors of the land who were bringing gold and silver in to Solomon.
9.15 King Solomon made 200 large shields of alloyed gold (600 shekels of alloyed gold went on each shield)
9.16 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.
9.17 The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold.
9.18 There were six steps to the throne, and there was a gold footstool attached to the throne, and there were armrests on both sides of the seat, and two lions were standing beside the armrests.
9.19 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.
9.20 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.
9.21 For the king’s ships would go to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram. Once every three years, the ships of Tarshish would come loaded with gold and silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
9.22 So King Solomon was greater than all the other kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
9.23 And the kings of all the earth sought an audience with Solomon to hear his wisdom that the true God had put in his heart.
9.24 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.
9.25 And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for his horses and chariots and 12,000 horses, and he kept them stationed in the chariot cities and close by the king in Jerusalem.
9.26 And he ruled over all the kings from the River to the land of the Philistines and to the boundary of Egypt.
9.27 The king made the silver in Jerusalem as plentiful as the stones, and cedarwood as plentiful as the sycamore trees in the Shephelah.
9.28 And they would bring horses to Solomon from Egypt and from all the other lands.
9.29 As for the rest of the history of Solomon, from beginning to end, is it not written among the words of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the record of visions of Iddo the visionary concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?
9.30 Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel for 40 years.
9.31 Then Solomon was laid to rest with his forefathers. So they buried him in the City of David his father; and his son Rehoboam became king in his place.