20. Twelve lions stood there, one on each side of the six steps; nothing like this had been made for any other kingdom.
21. All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Not one was silver, for this was accounted as nothing in the days of Solomon.
22. For the king had merchant ships at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the merchant ships came bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.
23. So King Solomon surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.
24. Now all the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.
25. Each man brought his present: articles of silver and gold, garments, armor, spices, horses, and mules, at a set rate year by year.
26. And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king at Jerusalem.
27. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar trees as abundant as the sycamores which are in the lowland.
28. Also Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Keveh; the king’s merchants bought them in Keveh at the current price.
29. Now a chariot that was imported from Egypt cost six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse one hundred and fifty; and thus, through their agents, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.