1 Kings 9:15-22

¹⁵Here is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the Lord's Temple, his own palace, the terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹⁶Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire, killed the Canaanites living in the town. He had then given it as a wedding dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife.

¹⁷Solomon rebuilt Gezer and lower Beth-horon,

¹⁸Baalath and Tamar in the wilderness, in the land of Judah,

¹⁹and all of Solomon's towns for storage, and the towns for his chariots and for his horsemen, plus whatever Solomon wanted to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and throughout his entire kingdom.

²⁰The descendants of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (people who were not Israelites)

²¹who remained in the land—those whom the Israelites were unable to destroy completely—were conscripted by Solomon to work as forced laborers, as they continue to do to this day.

²²But Solomon did not enslave any of the Israelites. They were his soldiers, officials, commanders, captains, chariot commanders, and horsemen.