20. All of Solomon’s cups and glasses were made of gold. And all the dishes in the building called the “Forest of Lebanon” were made from pure gold. Nothing in the palace was made from silver. There was so much gold that in Solomon’s time people did not think silver was important!
21. The king also had cargo ships that went to Tarshish to trade things with other countries. Hiram’s men were on these ships. Every three years the ships would come back with a new load of gold, silver, ivory, and apes and baboons.
22. King Solomon became greater in riches and wisdom than any other king on earth.
23. People everywhere wanted to see King Solomon. They wanted to hear the great wisdom that God had given him.
24. Every year people came to see the king, and everyone brought a gift. They brought things made from gold and silver, clothes, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.
25. Solomon had 4000 stalls to keep horses and chariots. He had 12,000 horse soldiers. Solomon built special cities for these chariots. So the chariots were kept in these cities. King Solomon also kept some of the chariots with him in Jerusalem.
26. Solomon was the king over all the kings from the Euphrates River all the way to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.
27. King Solomon had so much silver that it was as common as rocks in Jerusalem. And he had so much cedar wood that it was as common as sycamore trees in the hill country.
28. The people brought horses to Solomon from Egypt and from all the other countries.
29. Everything else Solomon did, from the beginning to the end, is written in the writings of Nathan the Prophet, in The Prophecy of Ahijah from Shiloh, and in The Visions of Iddo the Seer. Iddo was a seer who wrote about Jeroboam son of Nebat.
30. Solomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for 40 years.
31. Then he died and was buried in the city of David, his father. Then Solomon’s son Rehoboam became the next king.