The Daily Audio Bible

King Solomon speaks to his people

1 David's son Solomon made himself a strong ruler over his kingdom.^[a] The Lord his God was with Solomon, so that he became a great king.^[b]

² Solomon called all the people of Israel to come together. They included the army officers who had authority over 1,000 men, and those who had authority over 100 men. They also included the judges, the leaders in Israel and the leaders of families. ³ Then Solomon went with all those people to Gibeon town to worship God. The special tent that the Lord's servant Moses had made in the desert was there. It was the tent where God met with his people. ⁴ Before that, King David had brought God's Covenant Box from Kiriath-Jearim to Jerusalem. He had prepared a place for it in a tent there. ⁵ But the bronze altar that Bezalel had made was in Gibeon, in front of the Lord's tent. (Bezalel was the son of Uri, and the grandson of Hur.) So Solomon and the people went to meet the Lord there in Gibeon. ⁶ Solomon went up to the bronze altar which was in front of the Lord's special tent. He offered 1,000 burnt offerings on the altar to the Lord.

God meets with Solomon

⁷ That night, God showed himself to Solomon. God said, ‘Ask me to give you whatever you want.’

⁸ Solomon answered God, ‘You always showed your faithful love to my father David. Now you have chosen me to be king after him. ⁹ Now, Lord God, please do as you promised to my father David. You have chosen me to rule as king over a great nation with as many people as the dust on the ground. ¹⁰ So please give me wisdom and knowledge, so that I can be a good leader of these people. I will only be able to rule this great nation of your people if you do that for me.’

¹¹ God said to Solomon, ‘I am pleased that you have not asked to have riches or many valuable things. You have not asked me to give you great honour or for me to punish your enemies with death. You have not asked for a long life. Instead you asked me to give you wisdom and knowledge to rule over my people that I have chosen you to rule as king. ¹² Because of that, I will give to you wisdom and knowledge, as you asked. But I will also give you riches, valuable things and honour. You will have more of those than any king who has lived before you and more than any king who will live after you.’

¹³ Solomon left the special tent in Gibeon where God met with his people. He returned to Jerusalem. There he ruled over Israel as king.

Solomon buys horses and chariots

¹⁴ Solomon brought together many chariots and horses for his soldiers to ride. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses. He kept some of them in Jerusalem where he lived as king. He kept the others in cities that he had chosen for this. ¹⁵ While Solomon ruled as king, there was as much silver and gold in Jerusalem as stones! There was as much wood from cedar trees as there were fig trees that grew in the low hills in the west. ¹⁶ Solomon brought his horses from Egypt and from Kue. He sent traders to Kue to buy them for him. ¹⁷ They paid 600 pieces of silver for each chariot that they bought in Egypt. They paid 150 pieces of silver for each horse. They also sold chariots and horses to all the kings of the Hittites and to the kings of Syria.^[c]

Solomon begins to build the temple

2 Solomon decided to build a house to give honour to the Lord's name. He also decided to build a royal palace for himself. ² He chose 70,000 men to carry the heavy things for the buildings, and 80,000 men to cut rocks in the hills. He also chose 3,600 men to lead these workers.

Solomon asks Huram for help

³ Solomon wrote this letter to King Huram of Tyre:

‘You helped my father King David when you sent him wood from cedar trees to build his palace. Please help me now. ⁴ I am ready to build a temple to give honour to the Lord my God. It will be a holy place that belongs to him. We Israelites will burn sweet incense for him there. We will put special bread there every day. We will burn sacrifices to the Lord our God every morning and every evening. We will also do that on Sabbath days, on New Moon festival days and on other special days that God has chosen. He has told us to do this for all time.

⁵ The house that I will build for our God will be a great temple, because he is greater than all gods. ⁶ I know that nobody can really build a house for our God. The whole sky, or even heaven itself, is not big enough to contain him. So I certainly cannot build a place for him to live in, but it will be a place where we can offer sacrifices to him.

⁷ Please send me a man who has special skills to work with gold, silver, bronze and iron, as well as with valuable red, purple and blue materials. He must also know how to cut pictures on metal. He will help my own workers here in Judah^[d] and in Jerusalem. They are workers with special skills that my father David chose to do this work.

⁸ Please send me wood from cedar trees, cypress trees and other strong trees from Lebanon. I know that your men have good skills to cut down trees in Lebanon. My own men will help your men with the work. ⁹ I will need you to send me a lot of wood because I am ready to build a large and beautiful temple. ¹⁰ I will pay your men who cut down the trees. To pay them, I will send 2,000 tons of wheat, 2,000 tons of barley, 450,000 litres of wine and 450,000 litres of olive oil.’

Huram replies to Solomon's letter

¹¹ King Huram of Tyre replied to Solomon with this letter:

‘Because the Lord loves his people, he has chosen you to be their king.’

¹² Huram also said, ‘Praise the Lord, Israel's God! He made the whole universe. He has now given a wise son to King David, a son who is clever and who understands things well. He will build a temple for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

¹³ I have decided to send Huram-Abi to you. He is a wise man who has special skills. ¹⁴ His mother belonged to the tribe of Dan. His father came from Tyre. He knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone and wood. He can also work with purple, blue and red materials, and with white linen. He can make all kinds of pictures on metal, if you show him what you want. He will help your own workers and the workers that your father King David chose.

¹⁵ Please sir, now send us the wheat, barley, olive oil and wine that you promised. ¹⁶ Then we will cut the wood that you need from the trees in Lebanon. We will tie the wood together to make boats. Then we will send them on the sea to Joppa. You can take the wood from there up to Jerusalem.’^[e]

Solomon chooses men to build the temple

¹⁷ Solomon counted all the foreign men who were living in Israel, as his father David had done. There were 153,600 foreign men. ¹⁸ He chose 70,000 of them to carry things for the buildings and 80,000 of them to cut rocks in the hills. He also chose 3,600 of them to lead the workers, to make sure that they finished the work properly.

Solomon begins to build

3 Then Solomon began to build the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. He built it on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had shown himself to his father David.^[f] David had prepared a place for the temple there, at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.^{[g] 2} Solomon began to build the temple on the second day of the second month of the fourth year that he ruled Israel as king.^[h]

³ The foundation for God's temple was 27 metres long and 9 metres wide. (They measured it in cubits.)

⁴ There was an entrance room at the front of the temple's big hall. It was as wide as the temple, 9 metres wide. It was 9 metres high.^[i] Solomon's workers covered the inside of the entrance room with pure gold.

⁵ They covered the walls inside the big hall with boards of cypress wood. Then they covered the boards with pure gold. They drew pictures of palm trees and chains on the walls. ⁶ They used valuable stones to make the temple beautiful. The gold that they used came from Parvaim. ⁷ They used gold to cover all parts of the temple: the beams for its roof, the entrances, the walls and the doors. They cut pictures of cherubs on the walls.

The Most Holy Place in the temple

⁸ Solomon's workers built the Most Holy Place in the temple. It was 9 metres long and 9 metres wide. That was how wide the temple itself was. They used about 20,000 kilograms of pure gold to cover its walls. ⁹ The gold nails weighed the same as 50 gold coins. They also covered the walls of the upstairs rooms with gold.

¹⁰ In the Most Holy Place, they made models of two cherubs. They covered them with gold. ^11-13 The cherubs stood side by side in the Most Holy Place. Their faces looked towards the big hall. Each cherub had two wings. Each wing was 2.2 metres long. They held their wings out so that one wing of each cherub touched a wing of the other cherub. The other wing of each cherub touched a wall of the Most Holy Place. The four wings of the two cherubs reached across 9 metres.

¹⁴ Solomon's workers used blue, purple and red material and good linen to make a special curtain. It had pictures of cherubs on it.

The two pillars

¹⁵ Solomon's workers made two pillars to stand at the front of the temple. They were 16 metres high.^[j] There was a piece on the top of each pillar that was 2.2 metres high.

¹⁶ They made images of chains around the top pieces of the pillars. They also made 100 images of pomegranates among the chains. ¹⁷ Then they put the two pillars at the entrance of the temple. One pillar stood on the south side of the entrance. The other pillar stood on the north side. Solomon called the pillar on the south side ‘Jakin’. He called the pillar on the north side ‘Boaz’.^[k]

Sin does not rule us any longer

6 Someone might say, ‘Perhaps we should continue to do wrong things. Then God can be kind to us in more and more ways.’ ² No! Certainly we should not do that! Sin does not rule our lives any longer. That old life is dead! So it is not right that we should continue to do wrong things. ³ Remember what your baptism shows: When they baptized you, it shows that you are united with Christ Jesus. It also shows that, because Christ died, your old life also died.^{[a] 4} Your baptism shows that they buried you, just like they buried Christ after his death. It is like you died with him and they buried you with him. Because of that, God will also raise us, just as he raised Christ from death. God, the Father, is so great and powerful that he raised Christ to a new life. That means that we also can live our lives in a new way.

⁵ We have become united with Christ, and we have died like he died. Because of that, we will also be united with him in his new life. Just like Christ rose, we also will rise to a new life. ⁶ We know that God has caused our old nature to die with Christ on the cross. This happened so that God could make us free from the power of sin in our lives. We are no longer like slaves who have sin as their master. ⁷ Sin no longer has any authority over someone who has died.

⁸ So, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ God raised Christ, so that he became alive again after his death. Because of that, we know that he will never die again. Death has no authority over him any more. ¹⁰ When Christ died, he died once to destroy the power of sin for ever. Now that he is alive again, he lives to serve God. ¹¹ So you also should think about yourselves in the same way. Sin has no power over you, as if you were dead. In your new life, you live to serve God, because you belong to Christ Jesus.

¹² So do not let sin rule your life in this world. Do not do the wrong things that your body wants to do. ¹³ Sin can use your body to do things that are wrong. So do not let any parts of your body serve sin as their master. Instead, be ready to serve God as your Master. You can do that because you now have a new life. Your old life is dead. So give every part of your body to God. Then he will use you to do right things. ¹⁴ Sin will no longer have authority over you. You do not have a new life because you obey the Law which God gave to Moses. You have a new life because God is very kind to you.

Be careful to do what is right

¹⁵ Someone might say: ‘So we have a new life because God is kind to us. God's Law that he gave to Moses does not rule us any more. Then maybe we should continue to do wrong things. It will not make any difference.’ No, that is not true! ¹⁶ Remember this: When you agree to serve someone as a slave, you have to obey that person as your master. You may choose to serve sin as your master. If you do that, you will die.^[b] Or you may choose to obey God. If you do that, you will live in a way that is right. ¹⁷ At one time, you were slaves to sin. But then you received God's true message, and you were happy to obey it. I thank God because of that! ¹⁸ As a result, God has made you free from the power of sin. You are now like slaves who serve everything that is right and good.

¹⁹ It is difficult for you to understand these things, because you are still weak. So I am using a human picture of slaves to help you to understand better. At one time, you agreed to serve bad things as your master. You let your body do wrong and disgusting things. You continued to do more and more bad things. So now, you must use your body to serve what is right and good. Then you will do more and more good things which show that you belong to God.

²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you did not even have to think about what was right and good. ²¹ You did things that you are ashamed about now. Nothing good came from them. In the end, the result of those things is death. ²² But now God has made you free from the power of sin. You have become God's slaves. Many good things come from that, because God is helping you to live in a good way. In the end, the result will be that you will live with him for ever.

²³ If you serve sin as your master, it will pay you with death. But if you belong to our Lord Jesus Christ, God gives you a gift! That gift is life with God for ever.

David wrote this prayer.

God will help me