So he started back on another road; he did not travel back on the same road he had taken to Bethel.

He found another man and said, “Wound me!” So the man wounded him severely.

and had warned him about this very thing, so that he would not follow other gods. But he did not obey the Lord’s command.

You have sinned more than all who came before you. You went and angered me by making other gods, formed out of metal; you have completely disregarded me.

The other woman said, “No! My son is alive; your son is dead!” But the first woman replied, “No, your son is dead; my son is alive.” Each presented her case before the king.

The palace where he lived was constructed in a similar way. He also constructed a palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had married.

“But if you or your sons ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, and decide to serve and worship other gods,

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.’”

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.