But God told Shemaiah the prophet,

When Solomon became old, his wives shifted his allegiance to other gods; he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.

When all the people saw this, they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground and said, “The Lord is the true God! The Lord is the true God!”

Then you will invoke the name of your god, and I will invoke the name of the Lord. The god who responds with fire will demonstrate that he is the true God.” All the people responded, “This will be a fair test.”

Furthermore, on the hill east of Jerusalem Solomon built a high place for the detestable Moabite god Chemosh and for the detestable Ammonite god Milcom.

He prayed: “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below! You maintain covenantal loyalty to your servants who obey you with sincerity.

Now the advisers of the king of Syria said to him: “Their God is a god of the mountains. That’s why they overpowered us. But if we fight them in the plains, we will certainly overpower them.

Then all the nations of the earth will recognize that the Lord is the only genuine God.

But now the Lord my God has made me secure on all fronts; there is no adversary or dangerous threat.

Now my father David had a strong desire to build a temple to honor the Lord God of Israel.

Now, O God of Israel, may the promise you made to your servant, my father David, be realized.

Everyone in the world wanted to visit Solomon to see him display his God-given wisdom.

He built high places for all his foreign wives so they could burn incense and make sacrifices to their gods.

He worshiped and bowed down to Baal, angering the Lord God of Israel just as his father had done.

Others will then answer, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who led their ancestors out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. That is why the Lord has brought all this disaster down on them.’”

Solomon worshiped the Sidonian goddess Astarte and the detestable Ammonite god Milcom.

Benaiah son of Jehoiada responded to the king: “So be it! May the Lord God of my master the king confirm it!

One night in Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream. God said, “Tell me what I should give you.”

God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment; the breadth of his understanding was as infinite as the sand on the seashore.

May the Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he not abandon us or leave us.