54 ^aNow as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven. 55 And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, 56 “Blessed be the Lord who has given ^brest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. ^cNot one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant. 57 The Lord our God be ^dwith us, as he was with our fathers. May he not ^eleave us or forsake us, 58 that he may ^fincline our hearts to him, to ^gwalk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. 59 Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, 60 ^hthat all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; ⁱthere is no other. 61 Let your heart therefore be ^jwholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

62 ^kThen the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. 63 Solomon offered as ^lpeace offerings to the Lord ^m22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel ⁿdedicated the house of the Lord. 64 The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord, for there he offered the ^oburnt offering and the ^pgrain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings, because the ^qbronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offering and the grain offering and the fat pieces of the peace offerings.

65 So Solomon held the ^rfeast at that time, and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt, before the Lord our God, seven days.¹ 66 On the ^seighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David his servant and to Israel his people.

1 ^tAs soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, 2 the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, ^uas he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by ^vputting my name there forever. My ^weyes and my heart will be there for all time. 4 And as for you, ^xif you will walk before me, ^yas David your father walked, ^zwith integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, 5 then I will ^aestablish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ^b‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ 6 But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and ^cthe house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a ^dproverb and a byword among all peoples. 8 And this house will become a heap of ruins.² Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will ^ehiss, and they will say, ^f‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ 9 Then they will say, ‘Because they ^gabandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has ^hbrought all this disaster on them.’”

10 ⁱAt the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the ^jhouse of the Lord and the ^kking’s house, 11 and Hiram king of Tyre had ^lsupplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 12 But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. 13 Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of ^mCabul ⁿto this day. 14 Hiram had sent to the king ^o120 talents³ of gold.

15 And this is the account of the ^pforced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the ^qMillo and the ^rwall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer 16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed the ^sCanaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to ^this daughter, Solomon’s wife; 17 so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-horon 18 and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,⁴ 19 and all the store cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his ^uchariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. 20 All the people who were left of ^vthe Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel— 21 their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction⁵—^wthese Solomon drafted to be slaves, and so they are to this day. 22 But ^xof the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen.

23 These were the ^ychief officers who were over Solomon’s work: 550 who had charge of the people who carried on the work.

24 But Pharaoh’s daughter went up ^zfrom the city of David to ^aher own house that Solomon had built for her. Then he built the Millo.

25 ^bThree times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings on the ^caltar that he built to the Lord, making offerings with it⁶ before the Lord. So he finished the house.

26 King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 27 And Hiram sent with the ^dfleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. 28 And they went to ^eOphir and brought from there gold, 420 talents, and they brought it to King Solomon.