If I had acted at risk of my own life – and nothing is hidden from the king! – you would have abandoned me.”

Joab replied, “I will not wait around like this for you!” He took three spears in his hand and thrust them into the middle of Absalom while he was still alive in the middle of the oak tree.

Abishai son of Zeruiah replied, “For this should not Shimei be put to death? After all, he cursed the Lord’s anointed!”

When he came from Jerusalem to meet the king, the king asked him, “Why didn’t you go with me, Mephibosheth?”

But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David’s elite warriors did not ally themselves with Adonijah.

He has sacrificed many cattle, steers, and sheep and has invited all the king’s sons, Abiathar the priest, and Joab, the commander of the army, but he has not invited your servant Solomon.

Solomon said, “If he is a loyal subject, not a hair of his head will be harmed, but if he is found to be a traitor, he will die.”

He said, “Please ask King Solomon if he would give me Abishag the Shunammite as a wife, for he won’t refuse you.”

Now the people were offering sacrifices at the high places, because in those days a temple had not yet been built to honor the Lord.

Now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in my father David’s place, even though I am only a young man and am inexperienced.

Your servant stands among your chosen people; they are a great nation that is too numerous to count or number.

I got up in the morning to nurse my son, and there he was, dead! But when I examined him carefully in the morning, I realized it was not my baby.”

The king said, “One says, ‘My son is alive; your son is dead,’ while the other says, ‘No, your son is dead; my son is alive.’”

The king responded, “Give the first woman the living child; don’t kill him. She is the mother.”

As the temple was being built, only stones shaped at the quarry were used; the sound of hammers, pickaxes, or any other iron tool was not heard at the temple while it was being built.

But you will not build the temple; your very own son will build the temple for my honor.’

“God does not really live on the earth! Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!

“Foreigners, who do not belong to your people Israel, will come from a distant land because of your reputation.

Now several non-Israelite peoples were left in the land after the conquest of Joshua, including the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Their descendants remained in the land (the Israelites were unable to wipe them out completely). Solomon conscripted them for his work crews, and they continue in that role to this very day.