Songs of Ascents · Solomon's fame and fall

Psalms 120–125 WEB

^120:1In my distress, I cried to the LORD. He answered me. ²Deliver my soul, LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. ³What will be given to you, and what will be done more to you, you deceitful tongue? ⁴Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. ⁵Woe is me, that I live in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! ⁶My soul has had her dwelling too long with him who hates peace. ⁷I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

^121:1I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? ²My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. ³He will not allow your foot to be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. ⁴Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. ⁵The LORD is your keeper. The LORD is your shade on your right hand. ⁶The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. ⁷The LORD will keep you from all evil. He will keep your soul. ⁸The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forward, and forever more.

^122:1I was glad when they said to me, “Let’s go to the LORD’s house!” ²Our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem! ³Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together, ⁴where the tribes go up, even the LORD’s tribes, according to an ordinance for Israel, to give thanks to the LORD’s name. ⁵For there are set thrones for judgment, the thrones of David’s house. ⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Those who love you will prosper. ⁷Peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces. ⁸For my brothers’ and companions’ sakes, I will now say, “Peace be within you.” ⁹For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

^123:1I lift up my eyes to you, 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.

^124:1If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, let Israel now say, ²if it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us, ³then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us, ⁴then the waters would have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul. ⁵Then the proud waters would have gone over our soul. ⁶Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as a prey to their teeth. ⁷Our soul has escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare. The snare is broken, and we have escaped. ⁸Our help is in the LORD’s name, who made heaven and earth.

^125:1Those who trust in the LORD are as Mount Zion, which can’t be moved, but remains forever. ²As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people from this time forward and forever more. ³For the scepter of wickedness won’t remain over the allotment of the righteous, so that the righteous won’t use their hands to do evil. ⁴Do good, LORD, to those who are good, to those who are upright in their hearts. ⁵But as for those who turn away to their crooked ways, the LORD will lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be on Israel.

Psalms 127–134 WEB

^127:1Unless the LORD builds the house, they who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain. ²It is vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, eating the bread of toil, for he gives sleep to his loved ones. ³Behold, children are a heritage of the LORD. The fruit of the womb is his reward. ⁴As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of youth. ⁵Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They won’t be disappointed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

^128:1Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways. ²For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you. ³Your wife will be as a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house, your children like olive shoots around your table. ⁴Behold, this is how the man who fears the LORD is blessed. ⁵May the LORD bless you out of Zion, and may you see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. ⁶Yes, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel.

^129:1Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say: ²many times they have afflicted me from my youth up, yet they have not prevailed against me. ³The plowers plowed on my back. They made their furrows long. ⁴The LORD is righteous. He has cut apart the cords of the wicked. ⁵Let them be disappointed and turned backward, all those who hate Zion. ⁶Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, ⁷with which the reaper doesn’t fill his hand, nor he who binds sheaves, his bosom. ⁸Neither do those who go by say, “The blessing of the LORD be on you. We bless you in the LORD’s name.”

^130:1Out of the depths I have cried to you, LORD. ²Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my petitions. ³If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? ⁴But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared. ⁵I wait for the LORD. My soul waits. I hope in his word. ⁶My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. ⁷Israel, hope in the LORD, for there is loving kindness with the LORD. Abundant redemption is with him. ⁸He will redeem Israel from all their sins.

^131:1LORD, my heart isn’t arrogant, nor my eyes lofty; nor do I concern myself with great matters, or things too wonderful for me. ²Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. ³Israel, hope in the LORD, from this time forward and forever more.

^132:1LORD, remember David and all his affliction, ²how he swore to the LORD, and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob: ³“Surely I will not come into the structure of my house, nor go up into my bed; ⁴I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids, ⁵until I find out a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.” ⁶Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah. We found it in the field of Jaar. ⁷“We will go into his dwelling place. We will worship at his footstool.” ⁸Arise, LORD, into your resting place, you, and the ark of your strength. ⁹Let your priests be clothed with righteousness. Let your saints shout for joy! ¹⁰For your servant David’s sake, don’t turn away the face of your anointed one. ¹¹The LORD has sworn to David in truth. He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne. ¹²If your children will keep my covenant, my testimony that I will teach them, their children also will sit on your throne forever more.” ¹³For the LORD has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his habitation. ¹⁴“This is my resting place forever. I will live here, for I have desired it. ¹⁵I will abundantly bless her provision. I will satisfy her poor with bread. ¹⁶I will also clothe her priests with salvation. Her saints will shout aloud for joy. ¹⁷I will make the horn of David to bud there. I have ordained a lamp for my anointed. ¹⁸I will clothe his enemies with shame, but on himself, his crown will shine.”

^133:1See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity! ²It is like the precious oil on the head, that ran down on the beard, even Aaron’s beard, that came down on the edge of his robes, ³like the dew of Hermon, that comes down on the hills of Zion; for there the LORD gives the blessing, even life forever more.

^134:1Look! Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the LORD’s house! ²Lift up your hands in the sanctuary. Praise the LORD! ³May the LORD bless you from Zion, even he who made heaven and earth.

1 Kings 9 WEB

¹When Solomon had finished the building of the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he was pleased to do, ²The LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. ⁴As for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep my statutes and my ordinances, ⁵then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised to David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man on the throne of Israel.’ ⁶But if you turn away from following me, you or your children, and not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, ⁷then I will cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and I will cast this house, which I have made holy for my name, out of my sight; and Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸Though this house is so high, yet everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss; and they will say, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land and to this house?’ ⁹and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this evil on them.’” ¹⁰At the end of twenty years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the LORD’s house and the king’s house ¹¹(now Hiram the king of Tyre had furnished Solomon with cedar trees and cypress trees, and with gold, according to all his desire), King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of Galilee. ¹²Hiram came out of Tyre to see the cities which Solomon had given him; and they didn’t please him. ¹³He said, “What cities are these which you have given me, my brother?” He called them the land of Cabul to this day. ¹⁴Hiram sent to the king one hundred twenty talents of gold. ¹⁵This is the reason of the forced labor which King Solomon conscripted: to build the LORD’s house, his own house, Millo, Jerusalem’s wall, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer. ¹⁶Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, taken Gezer, burned it with fire, killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and given it for a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷Solomon built in the land Gezer, Beth Horon the lower, ¹⁸Baalath, Tamar in the wilderness, ¹⁹all the storage cities that Solomon had, the cities for his chariots, the cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion. ²⁰As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the children of Israel— ²¹their children who were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel were not able utterly to destroy—of them Solomon raised a levy of bondservants to this day. ²²But of the children of Israel Solomon made no bondservants; but they were the men of war, his servants, his princes, his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen. ²³These were the five hundred fifty chief officers who were over Solomon’s work, who ruled over the people who labored in the work. ²⁴But Pharaoh’s daughter came up out of David’s city to her house which Solomon had built for her. Then he built Millo. ²⁵Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar which he built to the LORD three times per year, burning incense with them on the altar that was before the LORD. So he finished the house. ²⁶King Solomon made a fleet of ships in Ezion Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. ²⁷Hiram sent in the fleet his servants, sailors who had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. ²⁸They came to Ophir, and fetched from there gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.