2 *Chronicles 8

₁After 20 years Solomon had finished building the temple and his palace. ₂After that he repaired the towns that Hiram had given him and he sent Israelites to go and live there. ₃Solomon went to the town of Hamath-Zobah and he defeated the people of the town. ₄Then he built the town of Tadmor in the desert and he built all the towns in the land of Hamath where he stored food and other things. ₅He also built the towns of Upper-Beth-Horon and Lower-Beth-Horon. These towns had strong walls and strong gates with locks. ₆He built the town of Baalath and all the towns with store rooms and towns where he kept his war-chariots and horses. Solomon built everything that he wanted to build in Jerusalem and on Mount Lebanon and in all the places in the land where he was king. ₇There were people in the land who were not Israelites. There were Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ₈They were the descendants of the people who had lived in the land before the Israelites came there. The Israelites had not killed them, so they were still there. Solomon told them to be slave workers and they still have to work very hard today. ₉But Solomon said the Israelites could not become slaves. They became his soldiers and officers and soldiers on war-chariots and on horses. ₁₀Solomon had 250 important_officials who had to see that the people did their work.

₁₁Solomon built a house for one of his wives, the daughter of Pharaoh. He did not want her to live in the City of David. He said: ‘This wife of mine may not live in the palace of King David of Israel, because the places where the covenant box of the Lord is are holy.’

₁₂Then Solomon sacrificed burnt-offerings to the Lord on the altar that he had built some time before. The altar was in front of the porch of the temple. ₁₃He sacrificed_offerings every day like the laws of Moses said. He sacrificed every Sabbath day, on the New-moon-feasts and when they celebrated the 3 great feasts every year: the Feast of the flat bread, the Feast of weeks and the Feast_of_shelters. ₁₄Solomon chose groups of priests to do the work at the temple and Levites to praise the Lord and to help the priests. He did what his father David had told him to do. He also chose gatekeepers because that was what his father David, the man of God, had said. ₁₅They did everything that the king told the priests and the Levites to do and they did what he said about the store rooms. ₁₆Solomon finished everything that he had to do, from the day that he started to build the foundation of the temple until the house of the Lord was finished.

₁₇Then Solomon went to the town of Ezion-Geber and the town of Elath. It was at the beach next to the sea in the land of Edom. ₁₈Hiram sent some of his officers to Solomon, and boats with seamen who knew the sea. They went with Solomon's seamen to the land of Ophir and they got 450 talents of gold for King Solomon.