ARKCODEX
1 Kings
Ch. 10
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba
1The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon's fame, and she traveled to Jerusalem to test him with difficult questions.
2She brought with her a large group of attendants, as well as camels loaded with spices, jewels, and a large amount of gold. When she and Solomon met, she asked him all the questions that she could think of.
3He answered them all; there was nothing too difficult for him to explain.
4The queen of Sheba heard Solomon's wisdom and saw the palace he had built.
5She saw the food that was served at his table, the living quarters for his officials, the organization of his palace staff and the uniforms they wore, the servants who waited on him at feasts, and the sacrifices he offered in the Temple. It left her breathless and amazed.
6She said to King Solomon, “What I heard in my own country about you and your wisdom is true!
7But I couldn't believe it until I had come and seen it all for myself. But I didn't hear even half of it; your wisdom and wealth are much greater than what I was told.
8How fortunate are your wives! And how fortunate your servants, who are always in your presence and are privileged to hear your wise sayings!
9Praise the Lord your God! He has shown how pleased he is with you by making you king of Israel. Because his love for Israel is eternal, he has made you their king so that you can maintain law and justice.”
10She presented to King Solomon the gifts she had brought: almost five tons of gold and a very large amount of spices and jewels. The amount of spices she gave him was by far the greatest that he ever received at any time.
11(Hiram's fleet, which had brought gold from Ophir, also brought from there a large amount of juniper wood and jewels.
12Solomon used the wood to build railings in the Temple and the palace, and also to make harps and lyres for the musicians. It was the finest juniper wood ever imported into Israel; none like it has ever been seen again.)
13King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba everything she asked for, besides all the other customary gifts that he had generously given her. Then she and her attendants returned to the land of Sheba.
King Solomon's Wealth
14Every year King Solomon received over twenty-five tons of gold,
15in addition to the taxes paid by merchants, the profits from trade, and tribute paid by the Arabian kings and the governors of the Israelite districts.
16Solomon made two hundred large shields and had each one overlaid with almost fifteen pounds of gold.
17He also made three hundred smaller shields, overlaying each one of them with nearly four pounds of gold. He had all these shields placed in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon.
18He also had a large throne made. Part of it was covered with ivory and the rest of it was covered with the finest gold.
19-20The throne had six steps leading up to it, with the figure of a lion at each end of every step, a total of twelve lions. At the back of the throne was the figure of a bull's head, and beside each of the two armrests was the figure of a lion. No throne like this had ever existed in any other kingdom.
21All of Solomon's drinking cups were made of gold, and all the utensils in the Hall of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. No silver was used, since it was not considered valuable in Solomon's day.
22He had a fleet of ocean-going ships sailing with Hiram's fleet. Every three years his fleet would return, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys.
23King Solomon was richer and wiser than any other king,
24and the whole world wanted to come and listen to the wisdom that God had given him.
25Everyone who came brought him a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons, spices, horses, and mules. This continued year after year.
26Solomon built up a force of fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand cavalry horses. Some of them he kept in Jerusalem and the rest he stationed in various other cities.
27During his reign silver was as common in Jerusalem as stone, and cedar was as plentiful as ordinary sycamore in the foothills of Judah.
28The king's agents controlled the export of horses from Musri and Cilicia,
29and the export of chariots from Egypt. They supplied the Hittite and Syrian kings with horses and chariots, selling chariots for 600 pieces of silver each and horses for 150 each.
Ecclesiastes
Ch. 7–9
Thoughts about Life
1A good reputation is better than expensive perfume; and the day you die is better than the day you are born.
2It is better to go to a home where there is mourning than to one where there is a party, because the living should always remind themselves that death is waiting for us all.
3Sorrow is better than laughter; it may sadden your face, but it sharpens your understanding.
4Someone who is always thinking about happiness is a fool. A wise person thinks about death.
5It is better to have wise people reprimand you than to have stupid people sing your praises.
6When a fool laughs, it is like thorns crackling in a fire. It doesn't mean a thing.
7You may be wise, but if you cheat someone, you are acting like a fool. If you take a bribe, you ruin your character.
8The end of something is better than its beginning. Patience is better than pride.
9Keep your temper under control; it is foolish to harbor a grudge.
10Never ask, “Oh, why were things so much better in the old days?” It's not an intelligent question.
11Everyone who lives ought to be wise; it is as good as receiving an inheritance
12and will give you as much security as money can. Wisdom keeps you safe—this is the advantage of knowledge.
13Think about what God has done. How can anyone straighten out what God has made crooked?
14When things are going well for you, be glad, and when trouble comes, just remember: God sends both happiness and trouble; you never know what is going to happen next.
15My life has been useless, but in it I have seen everything. Some good people may die while others live on, even though they are evil.
16So don't be too good or too wise—why kill yourself
17But don't be too wicked or too foolish, either—why die before you have to?
18Avoid both extremes. If you have reverence for God, you will be successful anyway.
19Wisdom does more for a person than ten rulers can do for a city.
20There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.
21Don't pay attention to everything people say—you may hear your servant insulting you,
22and you know yourself that you have insulted other people many times.
23I used my wisdom to test all of this. I was determined to be wise, but it was beyond me.
24How can anyone discover what life means? It is too deep for us, too hard to understand.
25But I devoted myself to knowledge and study; I was determined to find wisdom and the answers to my questions, and to learn how wicked and foolish stupidity is.
26I found something more bitter than death—the woman who is like a trap. The love she offers you will catch you like a net, and her arms around you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner.
27Yes, said the Philosopher, I found this out little by little while I was looking for answers.
28I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.
29This is all that I have learned: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.
Ecclesiastes 8
1Only the wise know what things really mean. Wisdom makes them smile and makes their frowns disappear.
Obey the King
2Do what the king says, and don't make any rash promises to God.
3The king can do anything he likes, so depart from his presence; don't stay in such a dangerous place.
4The king acts with authority, and no one can challenge what he does.
5As long as you obey his commands, you are safe, and a wise person knows how and when to do it.
6There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little!
7None of us knows what is going to happen, and there is no one to tell us.
8No one can keep from dying or put off the day of death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out.
The Wicked and the Righteous
9I saw all this when I thought about the things that are done in this world, a world where some people have power and others have to suffer under them.
10Yes, I have seen the wicked buried and in their graves, but on the way back from the cemetery people praise them in the very city where they did their evil. It is useless.
11Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough.
12A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live. Oh yes, I know what they say: “If you obey God, everything will be all right,
13but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God.”
14But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless.
15So I am convinced that we should enjoy ourselves, because the only pleasure we have in this life is eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves. We can at least do this as we labor during the life that God has given us in this world.
16Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day
17and never be able to understand what God is doing. However hard you try, you will never find out. The wise may claim to know, but they don't.
Ecclesiastes 9
1I thought long and hard about all this and saw that God controls the actions of wise and righteous people, even their love and their hate. No one knows anything about what lies ahead.
2It makes no difference. The same fate comes to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the bad, to those who are religious and those who are not, to those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. A good person is no better off than a sinner; one who takes an oath is no better off than one who does not.
3One fate comes to all alike, and this is as wrong as anything that happens in this world. As long as people live, their minds are full of evil and madness, and suddenly they die.
4But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion.
5Yes, the living know they are going to die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward; they are completely forgotten.
6Their loves, their hates, their passions, all died with them. They will never again take part in anything that happens in this world.
7Go ahead—eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful. It's all right with God.
8Always look happy and cheerful.
9Enjoy life with the one you love, as long as you live the useless life that God has given you in this world. Enjoy every useless day of it, because that is all you will get for all your trouble.
10Work hard at whatever you do, because there will be no action, no thought, no knowledge, no wisdom in the world of the dead—and that is where you are going.
11I realized another thing, that in this world fast runners do not always win the races, and the brave do not always win the battles. The wise do not always earn a living, intelligent people do not always get rich, and capable people do not always rise to high positions. Bad luck happens to everyone.
12You never know when your time is coming. Like birds suddenly caught in a trap, like fish caught in a net, we are trapped at some evil moment when we least expect it.
Thoughts on Wisdom and Foolishness
13There is something else I saw, a good example of how wisdom is regarded in this world.
14There was a little town without many people in it. A powerful king attacked it. He surrounded it and prepared to break through the walls.
15Someone lived there who was poor, but so clever that he could have saved the town. But no one thought about him.
16I have always said that wisdom is better than strength, but no one thinks of the poor as wise or pays any attention to what they say.
17It is better to listen to the quiet words of someone wise than to the shouts of a ruler at a council of fools.
18Wisdom does more good than weapons, but one sinner can undo a lot of good.
Psalms
Ch. 8
God's Glory and Human Dignity
1O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! Your praise reaches up to the heavens;
2it is sung by children and babies. You are safe and secure from all your enemies; you stop anyone who opposes you.
3When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—
4what are human beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them?
5Yet you made them inferior only to yourself; you crowned them with glory and honor.
6You appointed them rulers over everything you made; you placed them over all creation:
7sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too;
8the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas.
9O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!