Today's Reading

¹David the king said to all the assembly, "Solomon my son, whom alone God has chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great; for the palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.

²Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for the things of gold, and the silver for the things of silver, and the brass for the things of brass, the iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, stones for inlaid work, and of various colors, and all kinds of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.

³In addition, because I have set my affection on the house of my God, since I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, I give it to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house,

⁴even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, with which to overlay the walls of the houses;

⁵of gold for the things of gold, and of silver for the things of silver, and for all kinds of work to be made by the hands of artisans. Who then offers willingly to consecrate himself this day to the Lord?"

⁶Then the princes of the fathers' households, and the princes of the tribes of Israel, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, with the rulers over the king's work, offered willingly;

⁷and they gave for the service of God's house of gold five thousand talents and ten thousand darics, and of silver ten thousand talents, and of brass eighteen thousand talents, and of iron a hundred thousand talents.

⁸They with whom precious stones were found gave them to the treasure of the house of the Lord, under the hand of Jehiel the Gershonite.

⁹Then the people rejoiced, because they offered willingly, because with a perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great joy.

¹⁰Therefore David blessed the Lord before all the assembly; and David said, "You are blessed, Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever.

¹¹Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty! For all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

¹²Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all; and in your hand is power and might; and it is in your hand to make great, and to give strength to all.

¹³Now therefore, our God, we thank you, and praise your glorious name.

¹⁴But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly as this? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.

¹⁵For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.

¹⁶The Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build you a house for your holy name comes from your hand, and is all your own.

¹⁷I know also, my God, that you try the heart, and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things. Now have I seen with joy your people, that are present here, offer willingly to you.

¹⁸The Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart for you;

¹⁹and give to Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for which I have made provision."

²⁰David said to all the assembly, "Now bless the Lord your God!" All the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads and prostrated themselves before the Lord and the king.

²¹They sacrificed sacrifices to the Lord, and offered burnt offerings to the Lord, on the next day after that day, even one thousand bulls, one thousand rams, and one thousand lambs, with their drink offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel,

²²and ate and drink before the Lord on that day with great gladness. They made Solomon the son of David king the second time, and anointed him to the Lord to be prince, and Zadok to be priest.

²³Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him.

²⁴All the princes, the mighty men, and also all of the sons of king David submitted themselves to Solomon the king.

²⁵The Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed on him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.

²⁶Now David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel.

²⁷The time that he reigned over Israel was forty years; he reigned seven years in Hebron, and he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

²⁸He died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor: and Solomon his son reigned in his place.

²⁹Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the history of Samuel the seer, and in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the history of Gad the seer,

³⁰with all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries.

¹Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly.

²Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and to the judges, and to every prince in all Israel, the heads of the fathers' households.

³So Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for there was the Tent of Meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.

⁴But David had brought the ark of God up from Kiriath Jearim to the place that David had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem.

⁵Moreover the bronze altar, that Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord: and Solomon and the assembly were seeking counsel there.

⁶Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the Lord, which was at the Tent of Meeting, and offered one thousand burnt offerings on it.

⁷In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, "Ask what I shall give you."

⁸Solomon said to God, "You have shown great loving kindness to David my father, and have made me king in his place.

⁹Now, Lord God, let your promise to David my father be established; for you have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude.

¹⁰Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this your people, that is so great?"

¹¹God said to Solomon, "Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of those who hate you, neither yet have asked long life; but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge my people, over whom I have made you king:

¹²wisdom and knowledge is granted to you. I will give you riches, wealth, and honor, such as none of the kings have had who have been before you; neither shall there any after you have the like."

¹³So Solomon came from the high place that was at Gibeon, from before the Tent of Meeting, to Jerusalem; and he reigned over Israel.

¹⁴Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen: and he had one thousand four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, that he placed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

¹⁵The king made silver and gold to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as the sycamore trees that are in the lowland, for abundance.

¹⁶The horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt and from Kue; the king's merchants purchased them from Kue.

¹⁷They brought up and brought out of Egypt a chariot for six hundred pieces of silver, and a horse for one hundred fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of Syria, they brought them out by their means.

¹Now Solomon purposed to build a house for the name of the Lord, and a house for his kingdom.

²Solomon counted out seventy thousand men to bear burdens, and eighty thousand men who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them.

³Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, "As you dealt with David my father, and sent him cedars to build him a house in which to dwell, so deal with me.

⁴Behold, I am about to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him incense of sweet spices, and for the continual show bread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the set feasts of the Lord our God. This is an ordinance forever to Israel.

⁵"The house which I build is great; for our God is great above all gods.

⁶But who is able to build him a house, since heaven and the heaven of heavens can't contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him a house, except just to burn incense before him?

⁷"Now therefore send me a man skillful to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and who knows how to engrave engravings, to be with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father provided.

⁸"Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of Lebanon; for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon: and behold, my servants shall be with your servants,

⁹even to prepare me timber in abundance; for the house which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful.

¹⁰Behold, I will give to your servants, the cutters who cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil."

¹¹Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, "Because the Lord loves his people, he has made you king over them."

¹²Huram continued, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, that should build a house for the Lord, and a house for his kingdom.

¹³Now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, of Huram my father's,

¹⁴the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson, also to engrave any kind of engraving, and to execute any design; that there may be a place appointed to him with your skillful men, and with the skillful men of my lord David your father.

¹⁵"Now therefore the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants:

¹⁶and we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as you shall need; and we will bring it to you in floats by sea to Joppa; and you shall carry it up to Jerusalem."

¹⁷Solomon numbered all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, after the numbering with which David his father had numbered them; and they were found one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred.

¹⁸He set seventy thousand of them to bear burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to set the people at work.

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

²May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?

³Or do you not know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴We were buried therefore with him through baptism to death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection;

⁶knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.

⁷For he who has died has been freed from sin.

⁸But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him;

⁹knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him!

¹⁰For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

¹³Neither present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

¹⁴For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!

¹⁶Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?

¹⁷But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered.

¹⁸Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

¹⁹I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

²¹What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

²²But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹ To you I do lift up my eyes, you who sit in the heavens.

²Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes look to the Lord, our God, until he has mercy on us.

³Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.

¹The words of Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle: the man says to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal:

²"Surely I am the most ignorant man, and do not have a man's understanding.

³I have not learned wisdom, neither do I have the knowledge of the Holy One.

⁴Who has ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has bound the waters in his garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if you know?

⁵"Every word of God is flawless. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

⁶Do not add to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be found a liar.

⁷"Two things I have asked of you; do not deny me before I die:

⁸Remove far from me falsehood and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me;

⁹lest I be full, deny you, and say, 'Who is the Lord?' or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

¹⁰"Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty.

¹¹There is a generation that curses their father, and doesn't bless their mother.

¹²There is a generation that is pure in their own eyes, yet are not washed from their filthiness.

¹³There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes! Their eyelids are lifted up.

¹⁴There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.

¹⁵"The leach has two daughters: 'Give, give.' "There are three things that are never satisfied; four that do not say, 'Enough:'

¹⁶Sheol, the barren womb; the earth that is not satisfied with water; and the fire that doesn't say, 'Enough.'

¹⁷"The eye that mocks at his father, and scorns obedience to his mother: the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, the young eagles shall eat it.

¹⁸"There are three things which are too amazing for me, four which I do not understand:

¹⁹The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent on a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maiden.

²⁰"So is the way of an adulterous woman: she eats and wipes her mouth, and says, 'I have done nothing wrong.'

²¹"For three things the earth tremble, and under four, it can't bear up:

²²For a servant when he is king; a fool when he is filled with food;

²³for an unloved woman when she is married; and a handmaid who is heir to her mistress.

²⁴"There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise:

²⁵the ants are not a strong people, yet they provide their food in the summer.

²⁶The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.

²⁷The locusts have no king, yet they advance in ranks.

²⁸You can catch a lizard with your hands, yet it is in kings' palaces.

²⁹"There are three things which are stately in their march, four which are stately in going:

³⁰The lion, which is mightiest among animals, and doesn't turn away for any;

³¹the greyhound, the male goat also; and the king against whom there is no rising up.

³²"If you have done foolishly in lifting up yourself, or if you have thought evil, put your hand over your mouth.

³³For as the churning of milk brings forth butter, and the wringing of the nose brings forth blood; so the forcing of wrath brings forth strife."