and set up in it a place for the ark containing the covenant the Lord made with the Israelites.”

Now I have chosen and consecrated this temple by making it my permanent home; ¹  I will be constantly present there. ² 

But now I have chosen Jerusalem as a place to live, ¹  and I have chosen David to lead my people Israel.’

They seized her and took her into the precincts of the royal palace through the horses’ entrance. ¹  There they executed her.

On the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Berachah, where ¹  they praised the Lord. So that place is called the Valley of Berachah ²  to this very day.

Solomon went up to the bronze altar before the Lord which was at the meeting tent, and he offered up a thousand burnt sacrifices.

He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right side and the other on the left. ¹  He named the one on the right Jachin, ²  and the one on the left Boaz. ³ 

The poles were so long their ends extending out from the ark were visible from in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from beyond that point. ¹  They have remained there to this very day.

When your people ¹  come to their senses ²  in the land where they are held prisoner, they will repent and beg for your mercy in the land of their imprisonment, admitting, ‘We have sinned and gone astray ³ , we have done evil!’

Solomon rebuilt the cities that Huram ¹  had given him and settled Israelites there.

There were twelve statues of lions on the six steps, one lion at each end of each step. There was nothing like it in any other kingdom. ¹ 

From the time Amaziah turned from following the Lord, conspirators plotted against him in Jerusalem, ¹  so he fled to Lachish. But they sent assassins after him ²  and they killed him there.

Solomon and the entire assembly went to the worship center ¹  in Gibeon, for the tent where they met God ²  was located there, which Moses the Lord’s servant had made in the wilderness.

He told David, ¹  ‘Since the day I brought my people out of the land of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a temple in which to live. ²  Nor did I choose a man as leader of my people Israel.

Night and day may you watch over this temple, the place where you promised you would live. ¹  May you answer your servant’s prayer for this place. ² 

The Philistines had raided the cities of Judah in the lowlands ¹  and the Negev. They captured and settled in Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco and its surrounding villages, Timnah and its surrounding villages, and Gimzo and its surrounding villages.

The Lord sent a messenger ¹  and he wiped out all the soldiers, princes, and officers in the army of the king of Assyria. So Sennacherib ²  returned home humiliated. ³  When he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons ⁴  struck him down with the sword.

Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard that is in front of the Lord’s temple. He offered burnt sacrifices, grain offerings, ¹  and the fat from the peace offerings there, because the bronze altar that Solomon had made was too small to hold all these offerings. ² 

King Rehoboam solidified his rule in Jerusalem; ¹  he ²  was forty-one years old when he became king and he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord chose from all the tribes of Israel to be his home. ³  Rehoboam’s ⁴  mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.