DAY ONE HUNDRED-SIXTY SEVEN
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June 15
Devotional
As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, 1 Kings 9:4 CSB
There is a cause and effect that’s described in today’s verse. This verse serves as a reminder that your relationship with God goes beyond external activities and practices. Your relationship with God is about the condition of your heart and your commitment to direct your life to doing what’s right. It’s important to remember that your faithfulness to God is not a one-time decision, but is lived out on a daily basis. Obedience may not always be easy (and it’s sometimes inconvenient), but it is required. Notice this verse ends with a comma. The words that come after the comma speak to the promise that God is making with Solomon to establish his monarchy as he chooses to live the life this verse describes. God is always going to do His part. The question for you today is: are you willing to see your heart and actions align with God’s desires and plans?
1 Kings 9 CSB
The Lord’s Response9 When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do, 2 the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time just as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him:
I have heard your prayer and petition you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple you have built, to put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.
4 As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.
6 If you or your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commands—my statutes that I have set before you—and if you go and serve other gods and bow in worship to them, 7 I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, and I will reject the temple I have sanctified for my name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples. 8 Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will scoff. They will say, “Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?” 9 Then they will say, “Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They held on to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.”
King Hiram’s Twenty Towns
10 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Lord’s temple and the royal palace— 11 King Hiram of Tyre having supplied him with cedar and cypress logs and gold for his every wish—King Solomon gave Hiram twenty towns in the land of Galilee. 12 So Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns that Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them. 13 So he said, “What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother?” So he called them the Land of Cabul, as they are still called today. 14 Now Hiram had sent the king nine thousand pounds of gold.
Solomon’s Forced Labor
15 This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon had imposed to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. 16 Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He then burned it, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and gave it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17 Then Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Lower Beth-horon, 18 Baalath, Tamar in the Wilderness of Judah, 19 all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.
20 As for all the peoples who remained of the Amorites, Hethites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not Israelites— 21 their descendants who remained in the land after them, those whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely—Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is still this way today. 22 But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to slavery; they were soldiers, his servants, his commanders, his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry. 23 These were the deputies who were over Solomon’s work: 550 who supervised the people doing the work.
Solomon’s Other Activities
24 Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David to the house that Solomon had built for her; he then built the terraces.
25 Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, and he burned incense with them in the Lord’s presence. So he completed the temple.
26 King Solomon put together a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom. 27 With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced seamen, along with Solomon’s servants. 28 They went to Ophir and acquired gold there—sixteen tons—and delivered it to Solomon.
2 Chronicles 8 CSB
Solomon’s Later Building Projects8 At the end of twenty years during which Solomon had built the Lord’s temple and his own palace— 2 Solomon had rebuilt the cities Hiram gave him and settled Israelites there— 3 Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and seized it. 4 He built Tadmor in the wilderness along with all the storage cities that he built in Hamath. 5 He built Upper Beth-horon and Lower Beth-horon—fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars— 6 Baalath, all the storage cities that belonged to Solomon, all the chariot cities, the cavalry cities, and everything Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, or anywhere else in the land of his dominion.
7 As for all the peoples who remained of the Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, who were not from Israel— 8 their descendants who remained in the land after them, those the Israelites had not completely destroyed—Solomon imposed forced labor on them; it is this way today. 9 But Solomon did not consign the Israelites to be slaves for his work; they were soldiers, commanders of his captains, and commanders of his chariots and his cavalry. 10 These were King Solomon’s deputies: 250 who supervised the people.
11 Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh from the city of David to the house he had built for her, for he said, “My wife must not live in the house of King David of Israel because the places the ark of the Lord has come into are holy.”
Public Worship Established at the Temple
12 At that time Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the Lord’s altar he had made in front of the portico. 13 He followed the daily requirement for offerings according to the commandment of Moses for Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual appointed festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Shelters. 14 According to the ordinances of his father David, he appointed the divisions of the priests over their service, of the Levites over their responsibilities to offer praise and to minister before the priests following the daily requirement, and of the gatekeepers by their divisions with respect to each temple gate, for this had been the command of David, the man of God. 15 They did not turn aside from the king’s command regarding the priests and the Levites concerning any matter or concerning the treasuries. 16 All of Solomon’s work was carried out from the day the foundation was laid for the Lord’s temple until it was finished. So the Lord’s temple was completed.
Solomon’s Fleet
17 At that time Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth on the seashore in the land of Edom. 18 So Hiram sent ships to him by his servants along with crews of experienced seamen. They went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir, took from there seventeen tons of gold, and delivered it to King Solomon.
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