Ephesians 3:14-21

Prayer for Spiritual Strength

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Footnotes:

1. Ephesians 3:15 Or from whom all fatherhood; the Greek word patria in verse 15 is closely related to the word for Father in verse 14

1 Kings 9-10

The Lord Appears to Solomon

9 As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, ² the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. ⁴ And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, ⁵ then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ ⁶ But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, ⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸ And this house will become a heap of ruins.^[a] Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ⁹ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon’s Other Acts

¹⁰ At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the Lord and the king’s house, ¹¹ and Hiram king of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress timber and gold, as much as he desired, King Solomon gave to Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹² But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. ¹³ Therefore he said, “What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?” So they are called the land of Cabul to this day. ¹⁴ Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents^[b] of gold.

¹⁵ And this is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon drafted to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer ¹⁶ (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it with fire, and had killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife; ¹⁷ so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-horon ¹⁸ and Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,^[c] 19 and all the store cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ²⁰ All the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the people of Israel— ²¹ their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the people of Israel were unable to devote to destruction^[d]—these Solomon drafted to be slaves, and so they are to this day. ²² But of the people of Israel Solomon made no slaves. They were the soldiers, they were his officials, his commanders, his captains, his chariot commanders and his horsemen.

²³ These were the chief officers who were over Solomon’s work: 550 who had charge of the people who carried on the work.

²⁴ But Pharaoh’s daughter went up from the city of David to her own house that Solomon had built for her. Then he built the Millo.

²⁵ Three times a year Solomon used to offer up burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar that he built to the Lord, making offerings with it^[e] before the Lord. So he finished the house.

²⁶ King Solomon built a fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ²⁷ And Hiram sent with the fleet his servants, seamen who were familiar with the sea, together with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸ And they went to Ophir and brought from there gold, 420 talents, and they brought it to King Solomon.

The Queen of Sheba

10 Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. ² She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. ³ And Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. ⁴ And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, ⁵ the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her.

⁶ And she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, ⁷ but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. ⁸ Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! ⁹ Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.” ¹⁰ Then she gave the king 120 talents^[f] of gold, and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones. Never again came such an abundance of spices as these that the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

¹¹ Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a very great amount of almug wood and precious stones. ¹² And the king made of the almug wood supports for the house of the Lord and for the king’s house, also lyres and harps for the singers. No such almug wood has come or been seen to this day.

¹³ And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon. So she turned and went back to her own land with her servants.

Solomon’s Great Wealth

¹⁴ Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold, ¹⁵ besides that which came from the explorers and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of the west and from the governors of the land. ¹⁶ King Solomon made 200 large shields of beaten gold; 600 shekels^[g] of gold went into each shield. ¹⁷ And he made 300 shields of beaten gold; three minas^[h] of gold went into each shield. And the king put them in the House of the Forest of Lebanon. ¹⁸ The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with the finest gold. ¹⁹ The throne had six steps, and the throne had a round top,^[i] and on each side of the seat were armrests and two lions standing beside the armrests, ²⁰ while twelve lions stood there, one on each end of a step on the six steps. The like of it was never made in any kingdom. ²¹ All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were of silver; silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon. ²² For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.^[j]

²³ Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. ²⁴ And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. ²⁵ Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, myrrh,^[k] spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.

²⁶ And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. ²⁷ And the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah. ²⁸ And Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders received them from Kue at a price. ²⁹ A chariot could be imported from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and a horse for 150, and so through the king’s traders they were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.

Footnotes:

1. 1 Kings 9:8 Syriac, Old Latin; Hebrew will become high
2. 1 Kings 9:14 A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms
3. 1 Kings 9:18 Hebrew lacks of Judah
4. 1 Kings 9:21 That is, set apart (devote) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction)
5. 1 Kings 9:25 Septuagint lacks with it
6. 1 Kings 10:10 A talent was about 75 pounds or 34 kilograms
7. 1 Kings 10:16 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
8. 1 Kings 10:17 A mina was about 1 1/4 pounds or 0.6 kilogram
9. 1 Kings 10:19 Or and at the back of the throne was a calf’s head
10. 1 Kings 10:22 Or baboons
11. 1 Kings 10:25 Or armor

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.