Then David put his soldiers in Damascus, Aram. The Arameans became David’s servants and brought tribute. The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.
He put groups of soldiers in all the towns of Judah that were made into fortresses. He built fortresses in Judah and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.
He also defeated the Moabites. He forced them to lie on the ground in a long row. Using a rope to measure, those within two lengths of the rope were killed and those within every third length were allowed to live. So the Moabites became servants of David and paid tribute to him.
Now do it! The Lord was talking about David when he said, ‘I will save my people the Israelites from the Philistines and all their other enemies. I will do this through my servant David.’”
Great fear spread among the Philistine soldiers—those in the field, in the camp, and at the fort. Even the bravest soldiers were afraid. The ground began to shake, and they were completely overcome with fear.
Jonathan said to his young helper who carried his weapons, “Come on, let’s go to the camp of those foreigners. Maybe the Lord will use us to defeat them. Nothing can stop the Lord—it doesn’t matter if we have many soldiers or just a few soldiers.”
That day, Saul’s son Jonathan was talking with the young man who carried his weapons. Jonathan said, “Let’s go to the Philistine camp on the other side of the valley.” But Jonathan did not tell his father.
Jonathan defeated the Philistines at their camp in Geba. The Philistines heard about this. They said, “The Hebrews have rebelled.” Saul said, “Let the Hebrew people hear what happened.” So Saul told the men to blow trumpets through all the land of Israel.
The kings who served Hadadezer saw that the Israelites had defeated them, so they made peace with the Israelites and became their servants. The Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites again.
Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines. His kingdom went as far as the border of Egypt. These countries sent gifts to Solomon, and they obeyed him all of his life.
All the great things that Jeroboam did are written in the book, The History of the Kings of Israel. This includes the story about Jeroboam winning back Damascus and Hamath for Israel. (These cities had belonged to Judah.)