CHAPTER 9

¹And the Queen of Sheba heard the rumor of Solomon, and she came to try Solomon with riddles in Jerusalem with a very great retinue and camels bearing spices and gold in abundance and precious stones, and she came to Solomon and spoke to him all that was in her heart. ²And Solomon told her all her questions, and there was no question hidden from Solomon that he did not tell her. ³And the Queen of Sheba saw Solomon’s wisdom and the house that he had built, ⁴and the food on his table and the seat of his servants and the standing of his attendants and their garments and his cupbearers and their garments and the ascent by which he would go up to the house of the LORD—and she was breathless. ⁵And she said to the king, “The word that I heard in my land about your doings and your wisdom is true. ⁶And I did not believe their words until I came and my own eyes saw, and, look, the half of it was not told to me. You exceed in wisdom the rumor that I heard. ⁷Happy are your men, those who stand in your presence perpetually and listen to your wisdom. ⁸May the LORD your God be blessed, Who has desired you to sit on His throne as king for the LORD your God through your God’s love for Israel to make them stand forever, and has set you as king over them to do judgment and justice.” ⁹And she gave to the king a hundred twenty talents of gold and spices in great abundance and precious stones—and there was nothing like that spice which the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. ¹⁰And Huram’s servants as well and Solomon’s servants who had brought gold from Ophir brought sandalwood and precious stones. ¹¹And the king made from the sandalwood ramps for the house of the LORD and for the house of the king and lutes and lyres for the singers—the like of them had not before been seen in the land of Judah. ¹²And King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all she desired, for which she had asked, besides what she had brought to the king. And she turned and went to her land, she and her servants.

¹³And the weight of the gold that came to Solomon in a single year was a hundred and sixty-six talents of gold, ¹⁴besides what he had from what the traders and the merchants and all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land were bringing—gold and silver to Solomon. ¹⁵And King Solomon made two hundred shields of beaten gold, six hundred measures of gold he put on each shield, ¹⁶and three hundred bucklers of beaten gold, three hundred measures of gold he put on each buckler. And the king put them in the House of the Lebanon Forest. ¹⁷And the king made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with pure gold. ¹⁸Six steps the throne had, and the throne had a golden footstool attached to it, and arms on each side at the seat, and two lions standing by the arms. ¹⁹And twelve lions were standing there on the six steps on each side. Its like was not made in all the kingdoms. ²⁰And all King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Lebanon Forest pure gold. Silver counted for naught in Solomon’s days. ²¹For the king had ships going to Tarshish with Huram’s servants. Once every three years would the Tarshish ships come bearing gold and silver, ivory, apes, and parrots. ²²And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and wisdom. ²³And all the kings of the earth would seek Solomon’s presence to hear his wisdom that God had put in his heart. ²⁴And they would bring each his tribute, silver vessels and golden vessels, robes, weapons, and spices, horses and mules, what was done each year. ²⁵And Solomon had four thousand stables for horses and chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, and he led them to the chariot towns, and with the king in Jerusalem. ²⁶And he came to rule over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. ²⁷And the king made silver in Jerusalem like stones, and cedar he made like the sycamores in the lowlands in abundance. ²⁸And they would bring out horses for Solomon from Egypt and from all the lands. ²⁹And the rest of the acts of Solomon, early and late, are they not written in the words of Nathan the prophet and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Jedo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat? ³⁰And Solomon was king in Jerusalem and over all Israel forty years. ³¹And Solomon lay with his fathers, and they buried him in the City of David his father. And Rehoboam was king in his stead.