The Daily Audio Bible

Solomon gives a house to Pharaoh's daughter

¹¹ Solomon had built a palace for his wife, Pharaoh's daughter. When the palace was ready, he brought her up there from the City of David. He said, ‘My wife must not live in the palace of David, king of Israel. The Lord's Covenant Box has been there, so it is a holy place.’

The work of the priests and Levites

¹² Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar that he had built. The altar was outside the entrance of the temple. ¹³ He offered the sacrifices every day that Moses had told them to do. There were rules about sacrifices on Sabbath days, on festivals for each new moon and on the three special festivals each year. Those were the Festival of Flat Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Huts.^{[a] 14} Solomon gave jobs to each group of priests as his father David had commanded. He also gave the Levites their jobs to do each day. They led the music to worship God and they helped the priests with their work. He gave each group of guards a job to watch the gates of the temple. He told them all to do this in the way that God's servant David had commanded. ¹⁵ All the priests and the Levites were careful to do exactly what the king had commanded. That included the rooms where they stored valuable things.

¹⁶ Solomon's workers did all the jobs that he told them to do. They started on the day when they built the foundation of the Lord's temple. They continued to work until they had finished everything. In that way, work on the Lord's temple was complete.

¹⁷ Then Solomon went to Ezion-Geber and to Elath. They were towns on the coast of the sea, in the land of Edom. ¹⁸ King Hiram had sailors who knew how to sail ships on the sea. He sent some of these men to work with Solomon's sailors. They sailed to Ophir and they brought back about 15 tons of gold. They gave it to King Solomon.

The Queen of Sheba visits Solomon

9 The Queen of Sheba heard news that Solomon was a great king. So she came to ask Solomon some difficult questions to see how wise he was. She arrived at Jerusalem with a big group of servants. She had many camels that carried spices. They also carried a lot of gold and valuable jewels. When she came to Solomon, she talked to him about everything that was in her mind. ² Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing that was too difficult for him to explain to her. ³ The Queen of Sheba saw that Solomon was very wise.^[b] She saw the palace that he had built. ⁴ She saw all the food that he ate in his palace. She saw all his servants and officers and their beautiful clothes. She saw the servants who prepared his food and wine. She saw the burnt offerings that he offered in the Lord's temple. All these things caused her to hold her breath in surprise.

⁵ She said to the king, ‘In my own country I heard news about your wisdom and about all the things that you had done. Everything that I heard was true! ⁶ But I did not believe those things until I came here. Now I have seen everything with my own eyes, and it is true! Really, they told me less than half of what was true! You are even wiser than the report that people told me. ⁷ God has blessed your people and your officers! They are always with you, and they can listen to your wise words. ⁸ So we should praise the Lord your God! He is happy with you and he has chosen you to rule Israel on his behalf. Your God will continue to love Israel for ever, and he will always make them strong. So he has made you king to rule them in a fair and honest way.’

⁹ The Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon more than four tons of gold, a lot of spices and many valuable jewels. Nobody has ever brought such a great number of spices as she gave to the king.

¹⁰ King Hiram's men had brought gold from Ophir. King Solomon's men had helped them to do this. They also brought very good wood, and valuable jewels. ¹¹ The king used the wood to make steps for the Lord's temple and for the king's palace. He also used it to make harps and lyres for the musicians. Nobody had ever seen things like those in Judah.

¹² King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba everything that she wanted. He gave more things to her than she had brought to him. Then she left with all her servants and she returned to her own country.

Solomon's riches

¹³ Solomon received 25 tons of gold each year. ¹⁴ He also received money from traders and from people who travelled to buy things. The kings of Arabia and the rulers of each region in Israel also brought gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵ King Solomon's workers used gold to make 200 large shields. They hit the gold with hammers to make it flat. They used about four kilograms of gold to cover each shield. ¹⁶ They also made 300 small shields in the same way. They used about 2 kilograms of gold to cover each shield. He put these shields in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.^[c]

¹⁷ The king used ivory to make a large throne. He covered it with pure gold. ¹⁸ There were six steps up to the throne. They fixed a gold box to the throne for the king to put his feet on. On both sides of the seat there were places to put his arms. An image of a lion stood on each side of the throne. ¹⁹ There were 12 more images of lions on the six steps. There was one lion at each end of every step. There was no throne like it in any other kingdom. ²⁰ They used gold to make all King Solomon's cups that he drank from. In the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon, all the dishes and other things were made with gold. They used pure gold. They did not make anything with silver. In Solomon's time, people did not think that silver was very valuable. ²¹ The king had many large ships that King Hiram's men could sail across the seas.^[d] Every three years they returned to Solomon with their loads. They brought to him gold, silver and ivory. They also brought apes and monkeys.^[e]

²² King Solomon was richer and wiser than any other king in the world. ²³ The kings of every nation in the world wanted to talk to Solomon. They wanted to listen to the wisdom that God had given to him. ²⁴ Every year, people who came to visit Solomon brought him gifts. They brought things that were made from silver and gold, as well as clothes, weapons, spices, horses and mules.

²⁵ Solomon had places to keep 4,000 horses that pulled his chariots. He also had 12,000 horses. He kept them in the cities that he had chosen for this and also in Jerusalem where he lived. ²⁶ He ruled over all the kings around Israel, from the Euphrates river as far as the Philistines' country and the border of Egypt. ²⁷ While Solomon ruled as king, there was as much silver 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. ²⁸ People brought horses to Solomon from Egypt and from all the other countries.

Solomon dies

²⁹ People wrote down everything else that Solomon did while he ruled as king, from the beginning to the end. The prophet Nathan wrote them down in his book. The prophet Ahijah who came from Shiloh also wrote them down. The prophet Iddo also wrote about them in his book of the visions that he saw about Nebat's son Jeroboam. ³⁰ Solomon ruled over all Israel for 40 years while he lived in Jerusalem. ³¹ Then he died. They buried him with his ancestors, in the city of his father David. His son Rehoboam became king after him.

The Israelites ask Rehoboam to make their work easier

10 Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all the Israelites had gone there to make him king.^{[f] 2} At this time, Nebat's son Jeroboam was in Egypt. He had been living there since he ran away from King Solomon. When he heard the news about Rehoboam, he returned from Egypt. ³ The Israelites sent a message to Jeroboam to meet with them. Then Jeroboam and all the Israelites went to speak to Rehoboam. They said to him, ⁴ ‘Your father caused us to work too hard. Please make the work easier for us. If you do that, we will serve you as our king.’ ⁵ Rehoboam answered them, ‘Go away for three days. Then come back to me.’ So the people went away.

⁶ Then King Rehoboam went to talk to the older advisors who had served his father Solomon. He asked them, ‘What answer should I give to these people?’

⁷ They replied, ‘If you agree to be kind to these people and help them, they will always serve you as their king. So do what they are asking you to do.’

⁸ But Rehoboam did not agree with their advice. Instead he talked to some younger men. They had been his friends since they were young and now they were his advisors. ⁹ He asked them, ‘What do you think that I should say to these people? They want me to make their work easier.’

¹⁰ Rehoboam's young advisors said, ‘The people said to you, “Your father made us work too hard. Please make our work easier.” You should tell them, “Even my little finger is thicker than my father's whole body! ¹¹ My father made you work hard. I will make you work even harder! My father punished you with little whips. I will punish you with whips that bite your skin!” ’

Rehoboam refuses to do what the people want

¹² Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam after three days. That was because the king had said, ‘Return to me in three days.’

¹³ King Rehoboam spoke cruel words to the people. He did not agree to say what the older men had told him to say. ¹⁴ Instead, he did what the young men had suggested. He said to the people, ‘My father gave you work that was too hard for you. I will make it even worse! My father punished you with little whips. I will punish you with whips that bite!’

¹⁵ So the king did not agree to do what the people wanted him to do. It was God who caused this to happen. He had already given his message about this to Nebat's son Jeroboam. The prophet Ahijah who came from Shiloh had spoken the Lord's message to Jeroboam.^[g]

Israel and Judah become separate kingdoms

¹⁶ All the Israelites realized that the king refused to listen to them. So they said to the king,

So the Israelites went to their homes. ¹⁷ But Rehoboam continued to rule over the Israelites who lived in the towns of Judah.^[h]

¹⁸ King Rehoboam sent a man called Adoniram to talk to the Israelite people. Adoniram had authority over the men who had to work for Rehoboam. But the Israelites threw stones at Adoniram and they killed him.^[i] So King Rehoboam quickly got into his chariot and he escaped to Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Since that time, the tribes in the north of Israel have not accepted the authority of King David's descendants.

⁹ But you are not like that. You no longer obey your weak human thoughts. Instead, you obey God's Spirit as your guide. That is true if God's Spirit is really living in you. But if anyone does not have Christ's Spirit in them, that person does not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But, if Christ lives in you, you have a new life because of his Spirit. Your body will die one day because of the power of sin. But your spirit lives because Christ has made you right with God. ¹¹ God raised Jesus, to make him alive again after his death. Now God's Spirit lives in you. So God, who raised Christ from death, will also cause your human bodies to live again. He will do that by his Spirit who lives in you.

¹² So, my Christian friends, we must not obey what our weak human thoughts tell us to do. We no longer have to live like that. ¹³ If you agree to live in that way, you will die. Instead, you should let God's Spirit help you with his power. Then you can stop doing the wrong things that your bodies want to do. As a result, you will have life with God.

¹⁴ All those people who live with God's Spirit as their guide are God's children. ¹⁵ The Spirit that you have received from God does not make you serve him like slaves. That would make you afraid again. No. The Spirit that God has given to you causes you to become God's children. Now he takes care of you. God's Spirit makes us call God: ‘Abba, our Father.’ ¹⁶ God's Spirit himself causes us to know that we are God's children. God's Spirit and our own spirits agree that this is true. ¹⁷ Because we are God's children, we also know that we will receive good things from him. Those are the things that he has promised to give to his children. Together with Christ, we will receive the things that God has kept for him. That is true if we agree to have troubles like Christ did. Then we will also enjoy life in heaven like Christ does.

God has prepared great things for his people

¹⁸ During this time now, we have troubles and pain. But I am sure that these troubles are not really very great. One day God will show us all the great things he has prepared for us. That will make the troubles that we have now seem very small. ¹⁹ The whole universe that God has made now waits for something great to happen. Everything is waiting with hope to find out who God's children really are.

²⁰ God has caused everything in the universe to lose its purpose. It did not choose to be like that. It was God who decided that it should be like that. Then it could hope for something better in a future time. ²¹ At that time, the universe will not continue to become worse and worse, as it does now. It will become free from that power. It will be free to enjoy great things from God, as God's children are also free.

²² We know that everything in the universe is still in great pain now. Everything cries together in pain, like a woman who is ready to have a baby. ²³ It is the same for us who are believers. We have received God's Spirit as the first of his gifts to us, but we also cry inside ourselves. We are waiting for the time when God will finish his great work. Then we will belong to him completely as his children. Our bodies will be free from the power of sin.

²⁴ Ever since God saved us, we have continued to wait for this to happen. One day, we will receive what we have hoped for. Then we will not need to hope for it any more. Nobody continues to hope for something that he has already. ²⁵ But we continue to hope for what we do not yet see. And so, we wait for it patiently.