1 Kings 9:10–28

¹⁰Now at the end of the twenty years during which Solomon built these two houses, the house of the LORD and the royal palace, ¹¹King Solomon gave twenty towns in the land of Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, who had supplied him with cedar and cypress^b logs and gold for his every desire. ¹²So Hiram went out from Tyre to inspect the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them.

¹³“What are these towns you have given me, my brother?” asked Hiram, and he called them the Land of Cabul,^c as they are called to this day.

¹⁴And Hiram had sent the king 120 talents of gold.^d

¹⁵This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the LORD, his own palace, the supporting terraces,^e and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷So Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, ¹⁸Baalath, and Tamar^f in the Wilderness of Judah,^{g 19}as well as all the store cities that Solomon had for his chariots and horses^h — whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and throughout the land of his dominion.

²⁰As for all the people who remained of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (the people who were not Israelites) — ²¹their descendants who remained in the land, those whom the Israelites were unable to devote to destructionⁱ— Solomon conscripted these people to be forced laborers, as they are to this day.

²²But Solomon did not consign any of the Israelites to slavery, because they were his men of war, his servants, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and cavalry. ²³They were also the chief officers over Solomon’s projects: 550 supervisors over the people who did the work.

²⁴As soon as Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace that Solomon had built for her, he built the supporting terraces.

²⁵Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the LORD, burning incense with them before the LORD. So he completed the temple.

²⁶King Solomon also assembled a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth^j in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.^{k 27}And Hiram sent his servants, sailors who knew the sea, to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s servants. ²⁸They sailed to Ophir and imported gold from there— 420 talents^l— and delivered it to Solomon.