April 16

1 Kings 2:13 — 3:28
 

13 In time Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bath-sheba, Solomon’s mother. At this she said: “Is your coming peaceable?” to which he said: “It is peaceable.” 14 And he went on to say: “There is a matter I have for you.” So she said: “Speak.” 15 And he continued: “You yourself well know that the kingship was to have become mine, and it was toward me that all Israel had set their face for me to become king; but the kingship turned and came to be my brother’s, for it was from Jehovah that it became his. 16 And now there is one request that I am making of you. Do not turn my face away.” Accordingly she said to him: “Speak.” 17 And he went on to say: “Please, say to Solomon the king (for he will not turn your face away) that he should give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife.” 18 To this Bath-sheba said: “Good! I myself shall speak for you to the king.”

19 So Bath-sheba came in to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. At once the king rose to meet her and bowed down to her. Then he sat down upon his throne and had a throne set for the mother of the king, that she might sit at his right. 20 And she proceeded to say: “There is one little request that I am making of you. Do not turn my face away.” So the king said to her: “Make it, my mother; for I shall not turn your face away.” 21 And she went on to say: “Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah your brother as a wife.” 22 At this King Solomon answered and said to his mother: “And why are you requesting Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Request also for him the kingship (because he is my brother older than I am), even for him and for Abiathar the priest and for Joab the son of Zeruiah.”

23 With that King Solomon swore by Jehovah, saying: “So may God do to me, and so may he add to it, if it was not against his own soul that Adonijah spoke this thing. 24 And now, as Jehovah is living who has firmly established me and keeps me seated upon the throne of David my father and who made a house for me just as he has spoken, today Adonijah will be put to death.” 25 Immediately King Solomon sent by means of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he proceeded to fall upon him, so that he died.

26 And to Abiathar the priest the king said: “Go to Anathoth to your fields! For you are deserving of death; but on this day I shall not put you to death, because you carried the ark of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah before David my father, and because you suffered affliction during all the time that my father suffered affliction.” 27 So Solomon drove out Abiathar from serving as a priest of Jehovah, to fulfill Jehovah’s word that he had spoken against the house of Eli in Shiloh.

28 And the report itself came clear to Joab—for Joab himself had inclined to follow Adonijah, although Absalom he had not inclined to follow—and Joab went fleeing to the tent of Jehovah and began to hold fast to the horns of the altar. 29 Then King Solomon was told: “Joab has fled to the tent of Jehovah, and there he is beside the altar.” So Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying: “Go, fall upon him!” 30 Accordingly Benaiah came to the tent of Jehovah and said to him: “This is what the king has said, ‘Come on out!’” But he said: “No! For here is where I shall die.” At that Benaiah brought word back to the king, saying: “This is what Joab spoke, and this is what he answered me.” 31 Then the king said to him: “Do just as he has spoken and fall upon him; and you must bury him and remove from off me and from off the house of my father the blood undeservedly shed that Joab spilled. 32 And Jehovah will certainly bring back his blood upon his own head, because he fell upon two men more righteous and better than he was, and he proceeded to kill them with the sword, when my father David himself had not known of it, namely, Abner the son of Ner the chief of the army of Israel and Amasa the son of Jether the chief of the army of Judah. 33 And their blood must come back upon the head of Joab and upon the head of his offspring to time indefinite; but for David and for his offspring and for his house and for his throne there will come to be peace to time indefinite from Jehovah.” 34 Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went on up and fell upon him and put him to death; and he got to be buried at his own house in the wilderness. 35 Upon that the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in place of him over the army; and Zadok the priest the king put in the place of Abiathar.

36 Finally the king sent and called Shimei and said to him: “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem, and you must dwell there and not go out from there to this place and that. 37 And it must occur that on the day of your going out and when you do pass over the torrent valley of Kidron, you should unmistakably know that you will positively die. Bloodguilt for you will itself come to be upon your own head.” 38 At this Shimei said to the king: “The word is good. Just as my lord the king has spoken is the way that your servant will do.” And Shimei kept dwelling in Jerusalem many days.

39 And it came about at the end of three years that two slaves of Shimei went running away to Achish the son of Maacah the king of Gath; and people came telling Shimei, saying: “Look! Your slaves are at Gath.” 40 Immediately Shimei got up and saddled his ass and went to Gath to Achish to look for his slaves; after which Shimei went and brought his slaves from Gath. 41 Then Solomon was told: “Shimei has gone out of Jerusalem to Gath and is back.” 42 At that the king sent and called Shimei and said to him: “Did I not put you under oath by Jehovah that I might warn you, saying, ‘On the day of your going outside and when you do go here and there you should unmistakably know that you will positively die,’ and so did you not say to me, ‘Good is the word that I have heard’? 43 Why, then, did you not keep the oath of Jehovah and the commandment that I solemnly laid upon you?” 44 And the king went on to say to Shimei: “You yourself certainly know all the injury which your heart well knows that you did to David my father; and Jehovah will certainly return the injury by you upon your own head. 45 But King Solomon will be blessed, and the throne of David itself will prove to be firmly established before Jehovah forever.” 46 With that the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, who then went out and fell upon him, so that he died.

And the kingdom was firmly established in the hand of Solomon.


3 And Solomon proceeded to form a marriage alliance with Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to take Pharaoh’s daughter and bring her to the City of David, until he finished building his own house and the house of Jehovah and Jerusalem’s wall all around. 2 Only the people were sacrificing on the high places, for a house had not been built to the name of Jehovah down to those days. 3 And Solomon continued to love Jehovah by walking in the statutes of David his father. Only it was on the high places that he was regularly sacrificing and making offerings smoke.

4 Accordingly the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. A thousand burnt sacrifices Solomon proceeded to offer upon that altar. 5 In Gibeon Jehovah appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God proceeded to say: “Request what I should give you.” 6 At this Solomon said: “You yourself have exercised great loving-kindness toward your servant David my father according as he walked before you in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart with you; and you continued keeping toward him this great loving-kindness, so that you gave him a son to sit upon his throne as at this day. 7 And now, Jehovah my God, you yourself have made your servant king in the place of David my father, and I am but a little boy. I do not know how to go out and how to come in. 8 And your servant is in the middle of your people whom you have chosen, a multitudinous people that cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. 9 And you must give to your servant an obedient heart to judge your people, to discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this difficult people of yours?”

10 And the thing was pleasing in the eyes of Jehovah, because Solomon had requested this thing. 11 And God went on to say to him: “For the reason that you have requested this thing and have not requested for yourself many days nor requested for yourself riches nor requested the soul of your enemies, and you have requested for yourself understanding to hear judicial cases, 12 look! I shall certainly do according to your words. Look! I shall certainly give you a wise and understanding heart, so that one like you there has not happened to be before you, and after you there will not rise up one like you. 13 And also what you have not requested I will give you, both riches and glory, so that there will not have happened to be any among the kings like you, all your days. 14 And if you will walk in my ways by keeping my regulations and my commandments, just as David your father walked, I will also lengthen your days.”

15 When Solomon awoke, why, here it had been a dream. Then he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah and offered up burnt sacrifices and rendered up communion offerings and spread a feast for all his servants.

16 At that time two women, prostitutes, got to come in to the king and stand before him. 17 Then the one woman said: “Excuse me, my lord, I and this woman are dwelling in one house, so that I gave birth close by her in the house. 18 And it came about on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also proceeded to give birth. And we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, no one but the two of us in the house. 19 Later the son of this woman died at night, because she lay upon him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your slave girl herself was asleep and laid him in her own bosom, and her dead son she laid in my bosom. 21 When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, why, there he was dead. So I examined him closely in the morning, and, look! he did not prove to be my son that I had borne.” 22 But the other woman said: “No, but my son is the living one and your son is the dead one!” All the while this woman was saying: “No, but your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.” And they kept on speaking before the king.

23 Finally the king said: “This one is saying, ‘This is my son, the living one, and your son is the dead one!’ and that one is saying, ‘No, but your son is the dead one and my son is the living one!’” 24 And the king went on to say: “YOU men, get me a sword.” So they brought the sword before the king. 25 And the king proceeded to say: “YOU men, sever the living child in two and give the one half to the one woman and the other half to the other.” 26 At once the woman whose son was the living one said to the king (for her inward emotions were excited toward her son, so that she said): “Excuse me, my lord! YOU men, give her the living child. Do not by any means put him to death.” All the while this other woman was saying: “Neither mine nor yours will he become. YOU men, do the severing!” 27 At that the king answered and said: “YOU men, give her the living child, and YOU must by no means put him to death. She is his mother.”

28 And all Israel got to hear of the judicial decision that the king had handed down; and they became fearful because of the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was within him to execute judicial decision.