Today is the 13th day of June. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian, it is great to be here with you today as we gather yet again for the next step forward on our adventure through the Bible this year.

And as we gather yet again as a community, do this together. What a joy. That this can even happen and so what a joy to be here together with you today as as as we step forward.

And our next step obviously leads us back to the point that we left off and that leads us back into the book of first kings and the reign of King Solomon.

And we experience this kind of mountaintop apex moments as all that Solomon desires to develop throughout Israel is developed and that nation is brought to notoriety and prosperity.

It just doesn't last.

And so let's continue our journey forward. Today, first kings chapter 11 verse 1 through 12 verse 19.

King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh's daughter. Moabites, Ammonites, Edamite, Sedonian and Hittite women from the nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites,

you must not intermary with them and they must not intermary with you because they will turn your heart away to follow their gods.

To these women Solomon was deeply attached in love. He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 who were concubines and they turned his heart away.

When Solomon was old his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God as his father David had been.

Solomon followed Astorath, the goddess of the Sedonians and milk him the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites.

Solomon did what was evil in the Lord's sight and unlike his father David he did not remain loyal to the Lord.

At that time Solomon built a high place for Kimash, the abhorrent idol of Moab and for milk him the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites on the hill across from Jerusalem.

He did the same for all his foreign wives who were burning incense and offering sacrifice to their gods.

The Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice.

He had commanded him about this so that he would not follow other gods but Solomon did not do what the Lord had commanded.

The Lord said to Solomon, since you have done this and did not keep my covenant and my statutes which I commanded you, I will tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.

However I will not do it during your lifetime for the sake of your father David, I will tear it out of your son's hand, yet I will not tear the entire kingdom away from him.

I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem that I chose.

So the Lord raised up Haddad, the Edomite as an enemy against Solomon. He was of the royal family of Edom.

Earlier when David was an Edom, Joab the commander of the army had gone to bury the dead and had struck down every male in Edom.

For Joab and all Israel had remained there six months until he had killed every male in Edom. Haddad fled to Egypt along with some Edomites from his father's servants.

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