God Appears Again to Solomon
3 Kingdoms 9, verse 1. Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king's house, and everything Solomon wanted to do, 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 2. the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as He appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 3. The Lord said to him, “I heard your prayer and the supplication you made before Me; I have done for you everything in your prayer. I consecrated this house you built to place My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there all the days. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 4. Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with integrity of heart and in uprightness, and you do everything I commanded him and keep My statutes and My judgments, 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 5. then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I said to David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail a man to be ruler in Israel.’ 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 6. “But if you or your sons turn from Me and do not keep My commandments and My statutes Moses set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 7. then I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them. I will cast from My sight this house which I made holy by My name. Israel will be destroyed, and will become but prattle among the peoples. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 8. As for this exalted house, everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and will hiss and say, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and to this house?’ 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 9. Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and they embraced other gods and worshiped and served them. That is why the Lord brought all this calamity on them.’” 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 10. Then Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh from the City of David into the house he built for himself in those days.
The Pact with Hiram
3 Kingdoms 9, verse 11. Now twenty years later, after Solomon built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king's house, 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 12. Hiram the king of Tyre helped supply Solomon, as much as he desired, with cedar and pine and gold. Then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 13. So Hiram went from Tyre to Galilee to see the cities Solomon gave him, but they were not pleasing to him. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 14. He said, “What are these cities you gave me, my brother?” So he called them frontier cities to this day. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 15. Then Hiram sent Solomon one hundred and twenty talents of gold. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 16. King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, near Elath on the shore of the sea, in the land of Edom. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 17. Then Hiram sent his servants with the fleet, seamen who knew the sea, to work with the servants of Solomon. 3 Kingdoms 9, verse 18. They came to Ophir, and acquired one hundred twenty talents of gold from there, and brought it to King Solomon.