1After Solomon had finished the Lord's Temple and the royal palace, having accomplished everything he'd wanted to do,

2the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

3The Lord told him, “I have heard your prayer and your request to me. I have dedicated this Temple you have built by placing my name on it forever; I will always watch over it and take care of it.

4As for you, if you follow my ways as your father David did, doing everything I've told you to do, and if you keep my laws and regulations,

5then I will make your throne secure forever. I made this agreement with your father David, telling him, ‘You will always have a descendant to rule over Israel.’

6But if you or your descendants turn away and do not keep the laws and the commandments I have given you, and if you go and serve and worship other gods,

7then I will cut Israel off from the land I have given them. I will banish from my presence this Temple I have dedicated to my honor, and I will make it an object lesson of ridicule among the nations.

8This Temple will become a pile of rubble. All who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss, saying, ‘Why has the Lord acted in such a way to this land and this Temple?’

9The answer will come, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their forefathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping them and serving them. That's why the Lord has brought all this trouble upon them.’”

10It took twenty years for Solomon to construct the two buildings—the Temple of the Lord and his own palace. After this,

11King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had provided him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted.

12But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, he was not happy with them.

13“What are these towns you have given me, my brother?” asked Hiram. He called them the land of Cabul, ²⁴the name they are known by to this day.

14Even so, Hiram sent the king 120 talents of gold in payment.

15Here is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the Lord's Temple, his own palace, the terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

16Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, and killed the Canaanites living in the town. He had then given it as a wedding dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife.

17Solomon rebuilt Gezer and lower Beth-horon,

18Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,

19and all of Solomon's towns for storage, and the towns for his chariots and for his horsemen, plus whatever Solomon wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and throughout his entire kingdom.

20The descendants of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (people who were not Israelites)

21who remained in the land—those whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely—were conscripted by Solomon to work as forced laborers, as they continue to do to this day.

22But Solomon did not enslave any of the Israelites. They were his soldiers, officials, commanders, captains, chariot commanders, and horsemen.

23They were also the chief officers in charge of Solomon's programs: 550 in command of the people who carried out the work.

24Once Pharaoh's daughter had moved from the City of David to the palace that Solomon had built for her, he built the city terraces.

25Three times each year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and friendship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, burning incense before the Lord with them, and so fulfilled what was required at the Temple. ²⁵

26King 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.

27Hiram sent his sailors who knew the sea to serve in the fleet with Solomon's men.

28They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents of gold from there and delivered it to Solomon.