1 Kings 3

3 ¹ Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt. He took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the City of David until he had finished building his own palace, the house of our Father, and the wall around Jerusalem. ² The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because no house had yet been built for the name of our Father in those days. ¹ 1 v2 The high places were local hilltop shrines where people sacrificed before the temple gave worship a single home. ³ Solomon loved our Father, walking in the statutes of his father David; only he sacrificed and burned incense at the high places. ⁴ The king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place. Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar.

⁵ At Gibeon our Father appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and he said, "Ask what I should give you."

⁶ Solomon replied, "You have shown great steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day." ⁷ And now, my Father, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, though I am only a young child and do not know how to go out or come in. ⁸ Your servant is here among your people whom you have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted. ⁹ So give your servant an understanding heart to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil; for who is able to govern this great people of yours?

¹⁰ It pleased the Sovereign Father that Solomon had asked this.

¹¹ Our Father said to him, "Because you have asked for this and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for discernment to understand what is just, ¹² behold, I now act according to your word. I give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, and none like you shall arise after you. ¹³ I also give you what you have not asked for: both riches and honor, so that among all the kings none will compare with you for all your days. ¹⁴ And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.

¹⁵ Then Solomon awoke, and he realized it had been a dream. He went to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Sovereign Father, offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.

The Father's Wisdom Reveals the True Mother

¹⁶ Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. ¹⁷ One woman said, "Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth while she was there in the house." ¹⁸ On the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were alone; there was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us. ¹⁹ During the night this woman's son died, because she lay on him. ²⁰ So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept, and laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. ²¹ When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, there he was, dead. But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that he was not the son I had borne.

²² Then the other woman said, "No! The living one is my son, and the dead one is yours." But the first insisted, "No! The dead one is your son, and the living one is mine." So they argued before the king.

²³ The king said, "This one says, 'This is my son who is alive, and your son is the dead one,' while that one says, 'No, your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.'"

²⁴ So the king said, "Bring me a sword." And they brought a sword before the king. ²⁵ The king said, "Cut the living child in two, and give half to one and half to the other."

²⁶ Then the woman whose son was alive spoke to the king, for her heart was moved with compassion for her son, and she said, "Please, my lord, give her the living child! By no means put him to death!" But the other said, "He shall be neither mine nor yours—cut him in two!"

²⁷ Then the king said, "Give the first woman the living child, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother."

²⁸ All Israel heard of the judgment the king had rendered, and they stood in awe of the king, because they saw that the wisdom of our Father was in him to administer justice.