19. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom.
20. All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon’s day.
21. The king had a fleet of trading ships manned by Hiram’s servants. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.
22. King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.
23. All the kings of the earth sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.
24. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift – articles of silver and gold, and robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.
25. Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horses, which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.
26. He ruled over all the kings from the River Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt.
27. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills.
28. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from all other countries.
29. As for the other events of Solomon’s reign, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Nathan the prophet, in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat?
30. Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel for forty years.
31. Then he rested with his ancestors and was buried in the city of David his father. And Rehoboam his son succeeded him as king.