“God does not really live on the earth! ¹  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. ¹ 

Hiram asked, ¹  “Why did you give me these cities, my friend ² ?” He called that area the region of Cabul, a name which it has retained to this day. ³ 

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. ¹ 

King Solomon also built ships ¹  in Ezion Geber, which is located near Elat in the land of Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.

She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your wise sayings and insight ¹  was true!

Everyone ¹  in the world wanted to visit Solomon to see him display his God-given wisdom. ² 

Pharaoh said to him, “What do you lack here that makes you want to go to your homeland?” ¹  Hadad replied, ²  “Nothing, but please give me permission to leave.” ³ 

There were also male cultic prostitutes ¹  in the land. They committed the same horrible sins as the nations ²  that the Lord had driven out from before the Israelites.

They divided up the land between them; Ahab went ¹  one way and Obadiah went the other.

So Ahab went on up to eat and drink, while Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel. He bent down toward the ground and put his face between his knees.

When the Israelites had mustered and had received their supplies, they marched out to face them in battle. When the Israelites deployed opposite them, they were like two small flocks ¹  of goats, but the Syrians filled the land.

(5:1) ¹  Solomon ruled all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River ²  to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms paid tribute as Solomon’s subjects throughout his lifetime. ³ 

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites left Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, during the month Ziv ¹  (the second month), he began building the Lord’s temple.

There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. ¹  It was there that ²  the Lord made an agreement with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

He prayed: ¹  “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below! You maintain covenantal loyalty ²  to your servants who obey you with sincerity. ³ 

then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Certainly ¹  you will then teach them the right way to live ²  and send rain on your land that you have given your people to possess. ³ 

“The time will come when your people ¹  will sin against you (for there is no one who is sinless!) and you will be angry with them and deliver them over to their enemies, who will take them as prisoners to their own land, ²  whether far away or close by.

After all, ¹  you picked them out of all the nations of the earth to be your special possession, ²  just as you, O sovereign Lord, announced through your servant Moses when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”

This temple will become a heap of ruins; ¹  everyone who passes by it will be shocked and will hiss out their scorn, ²  saying, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?’