Let’s go early to the vineyards; let’s see if the vine has budded, if the blossom has opened, if the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my caresses.
Since he had many cattle both in the Judean foothills and the plain, he built towers in the desert and dug many wells. And since he was a lover of the soil, he had farmers and vinedressers in the hills and in the fertile lands.
Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh from the city of David to the house he had built for her, for he said, ‘My wife must not live in the house of King David of Israel because the places the ark of the Lord has come into are holy.’
‘There is a treaty between me and you, between my father and your father. Look, I have sent you a gift of silver and gold. Go and break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel so that he will withdraw from me.’
When he was alive, Absalom had taken a pillar and raised it up for himself in the King’s Valley, since he thought, ‘I have no son to preserve the memory of my name.’ So he named the pillar after himself. It is still called Absalom’s Monument today.
And they said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.’