17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I
have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.18 For truly
I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the
least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until
everything is accomplished.19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least
of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the
kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be
called great in the kingdom of heaven.20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness
surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly
not enter the kingdom of heaven.
When Solomon had finished
building the temple of the Lord
and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the
Lord appeared to him a second
time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him:
“I
have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this
temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my
heart will always be there.
4 “As
for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and
uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my
decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over
Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never
fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’
6 “But
if you[a] or your
descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I
have given you[b] and go off
to serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off
Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have
consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of
ridicule among all peoples. 8 This temple will become a heap of
rubble. All[c] who pass by
will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 9 People
will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord
their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other
gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.’”
10 At
the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings—the
temple of the Lord and the royal
palace— 11 King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram
king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and
gold he wanted. 12 But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the
towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13 “What
kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called
them the Land of Kabul,[d] a name they
have to this day. 14 Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents[e] of gold.
15 Here
is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the
terraces,[f] the wall of
Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. 16 (Pharaoh king of
Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its
Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter,
Solomon’s wife. 17 And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up
Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tadmor[g] in the
desert, within his land, 19 as well as all his store cities and
the towns for his chariots and for his horses[h]—whatever he
desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he
ruled.
20 There
were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and
Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites). 21 Solomon
conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the
Israelites could not exterminate[i]—to serve as
slave labor, as it is to this day. 22 But Solomon did not make
slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government
officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and
charioteers. 23 They were also the chief officials in charge of
Solomon’s projects—550 officials supervising those who did the work.
24 After
Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had
built for her, he constructed the terraces.
25 Three
times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the
altar he had built for the Lord,
burning incense before the Lord
along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.
26 King
Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the
shore of the Red Sea.[j]27 And
Hiram sent his men—sailors who knew the sea—to serve in the fleet with
Solomon’s men. 28 They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420
talents[k] of gold,
which they delivered to King Solomon.
