1 Then, twenty years having passed since Solomon built the house of the Lord and his own house,
2 he built the cities that Hiram had given to Solomon, and he caused the sons of Israel to live there.
3 Also, he went to Hamath Zobah, and he obtained it.
4 And he built Palmira in the desert, and he built very fortified cities in Hamath.
5 And he built upper Beth-horon and lower Beth-horon, as walled cities, having gates and bars and locks,
6 as well as Baalath, and all the very strong cities which were of Solomon, and all the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen. Everything whatsoever that Solomon willed and decided, he built in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and throughout the entire land of his authority.
7 All the people who had been left from the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, those who were not from the stock of Israel,
8 those of their sons and their posterity whom the sons of Israel had not put to death, Solomon subjugated as tributaries, even to this day.
9 But he did not appoint anyone from the sons of Israel to serve in the works of the king. For they were men of war, and first rulers, and commanders of his chariots and horsemen.
10 Now all the leaders of the army of king Solomon were two hundred fifty, who were instructing the people.
11 Truly, he transferred the daughter of Pharaoh, from the City of David, to the house that he had built for her. For the king said: “My wife shall not live in the house of David, king of Israel, for it has been sanctified. For the ark of the Lord has entered into it.”
12 Then Solomon offered holocausts to the Lord on the altar of the Lord, which he had constructed before the portico,
13 so that every day there would be an offering on it, in accord with precept of Moses, on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and three times a year on the feast days, that is, on the solemnity of unleavened bread, and on the solemnity of weeks, and in the solemnity of tabernacles.
14 And he appointed, in accord with the plan of his father David, the offices of the priests in their ministries; and those of the Levites, in their orders, so that they might praise and minister before the priests according to the ritual of each day; and the porters, in their divisions, from gate to gate. For so had David, the man of God, instructed.
15 Neither the priests, nor the Levites, transgressed against the commands of the king, in all that he had instructed, and in the keeping of the treasuries.
16 Solomon had all the expenses prepared, from the day on which he founded the house of the Lord, even until the day when he perfected it.
17 Then Solomon went away to Eziongeber, and to Eloth, on the coast of the Red Sea, which is in the land of Edom.
18 And Hiram sent to him ships, by the hands of his servants, sailors and skillful navigators of the sea, and they went away with the servants of Solomon to Ophir. And they took from there four hundred fifty talents of gold, and they brought it to king Solomon.