אָב

So if you walk in My ways and keep My statutes and commandments, just as your father David did, I will prolong your days.”

Now when Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king in his father’s place, he sent envoys to Solomon; for Hiram had always been a friend of David.

“As you are well aware, due to the wars waged on all sides against my father David, he could not build a house for the Name of the LORD his God until the LORD had put his enemies under his feet.

So behold, I plan to build a house for the Name of the LORD my God, according to what the LORD said to my father David: ‘I will put your son on your throne in your place, and he will build the house for My Name.’

“As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David.

He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a craftsman in bronze. Huram had great skill, understanding, and knowledge for every kind of bronze work. So he came to King Solomon and carried out all his work.

So all the work that King Solomon had performed for the house of the LORD was completed. Then Solomon brought in the items his father David had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of the LORD.

At that time Solomon assembled before him in Jerusalem the elders of Israel—all the tribal heads and family leaders of the Israelites—to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Zion, the City of David.

…and said: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying,

Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

But the LORD said to my father David, ‘Since it was in your heart to build a house for My Name, you have done well to have this in your heart.

Now the LORD has fulfilled the word that He spoke. I have succeeded my father David, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised. I have built the house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

And there I have provided a place for the ark, which contains the covenant of the LORD that He made with our fathers when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

You have kept Your promise to Your servant, my father David. What You spoke with Your mouth You have fulfilled with Your hand this day.

Therefore now, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for Your servant, my father David, what You promised when You said: ‘You will never fail to have a man to sit before Me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants guard their way to walk before Me as you have done.’

And now, O God of Israel, please confirm what You promised to Your servant, my father David.

…then may You hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel. May You restore them to the land You gave to their fathers.

…so that they may fear You all the days they live in the land that You gave to our fathers.

…and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray to You in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name,

For You, O Lord GOD, have set them apart from all the peoples of the earth as Your inheritance, as You spoke through Your servant Moses when You brought our fathers out of Egypt.”

May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He never leave us or forsake us.

May He incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep the commandments and statutes and ordinances He commanded our fathers.

And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

…then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.’”

For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.

So Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD; unlike his father David, he did not follow the LORD completely.

Nevertheless, for the sake of your father David, I will not do it during your lifetime; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

But Hadad, still just a young boy, had fled to Egypt, along with some Edomites who were servants of his father.

When Hadad heard in Egypt that David had rested with his fathers and that Joab, the commander of the army, was dead, he said to Pharaoh, “Let me go, that I may return to my own country.”

…and this is the account of his rebellion against the king. Solomon had built the supporting terraces and repaired the gap in the wall of the city of his father David.

For they have forsaken Me to worship Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites. They have not walked in My ways, nor done what is right in My eyes, nor kept My statutes and judgments, as Solomon’s father David did.

And Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. And his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

“Your father put a heavy yoke on us. But now you must lighten the burden of your father’s service and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

Then King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How do you advise me to respond to these people?” he asked.

He asked them, “What message do you advise that we send back to these people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

The young men who had grown up with him replied, “This is how you should answer these people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must make it lighter.’ This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist!

Whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

…and spoke to them as the young men had advised, saying, “Whereas my father made your yoke heavy, I will add to your yoke. Whereas my father scourged you with whips, I will scourge you with scorpions.”

Now a certain old prophet was living in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the deeds that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told their father the words that the man had spoken to the king.

“Which way did he go?” their father asked. And his sons showed him the way taken by the man of God, who had come from Judah.

…but you went back and ate bread and drank water in the place where He told you not to do so, your body shall never reach the tomb of your fathers.’”

For the LORD will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave their fathers, and He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking the LORD to anger.

And the length of Jeroboam’s reign was twenty-two years, and he rested with his fathers, and his son Nadab reigned in his place.

And Judah did evil in the sight of the LORD, and by the sins they committed they provoked Him to jealous anger more than all their fathers had done.