First Kings 3:13-26

¹³I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days.

¹⁴If you will walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.”

¹⁵Then Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream. He came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. He offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and made a feast for all his servants.

¹⁶Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him.

¹⁷One woman said, “Oh, my master, this woman and I live in the same house, and I gave birth to a child with her in the house.

¹⁸It happened on the third day after I gave birth that this woman also gave birth. We were together. There was no one else with us in the house, but only the two of us in the house.

¹⁹Then this woman's son died in the night, because she lay on him.

²⁰So she arose at midnight 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.

²¹When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, he was dead. But when I had looked at him carefully in the morning, he was not my son, whom I had borne.”

²²Then the other woman said, “No, the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” The first woman said, “No, the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” This is how they spoke before the king.

²³Then the king said, “One of you says, 'This is my son who is alive, and your son is dead,' and the other says, 'No, your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.'”

²⁴The king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king.

²⁵Then the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to this woman and half to the other.”

²⁶Then the woman whose son was alive spoke to the king, for her heart was full of compassion for her son, and she said, “Oh, my master, give her the living child, and by no means kill him.” But the other woman said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him.”