y shall answer: For
they have forsaken their Lord God that brought them out of the land of
Egypt, and have followed strange gods, and them adored and worshipped,
and therefore God hath brought on them all this evil: here may every man
take ensample how perilous and dreadful it is to break the commandment
of God.

Twenty years after that Solomon had edified the temple of God and his
house, and finished it perfectly, Hiram the king of Tyre went for to see
towns that Solomon had given to him, and they pleased him not. Hiram had
sent to King Solomon an hundred and twenty besants of gold, which he had
spent on the temple and his house, and on the wall of Jerusalem and
other towns and places that he had made. Solomon was rich and glorious
that the fame ran, of his sapience and wisdom and of his building and
dispense in his house, through the world, insomuch that the queen of
Sheba came from far countries to see him and to tempt him in demands and
questions. And she came into Jerusalem with much people and riches, with
camels charged with aromatics and gold infinite. And she came and spake
to King Solomon all that ever she had in her heart. And Solomon taught
her in all that ever she purposed tofore him. She could say nothing but
that the king answered to her, there was nothing hid from him. The queen
of Sheba then seeing all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had
builded, and the meat and service of his table, the habitacles of his
servants, the order of the ministers, their clothing and array, his
butlers and officers, and the sacrifices that he offered in the house of
our Lord, when she saw all these things, she had no spirit to answer,
but she said to King Solomon: The word is true that I heard in my land,
of thy words and thy wisdom, and I believed not them that told it to me,
unto the time that I myself came and have seen it with mine eyes, and I
have now well seen and proved that the half was not told to me. Thy
sapience is more, and thy works also, than the tidings that I heard.
Blessed be thy servants, and blessed be these that stand always tofore
thee and hear thy sapience and wisdom, and thy Lord God be blessed whom
thou hast pleased, and hath set thee upon the throne of Israel, for so
much as God of Israel loveth thee and hath ordained thee a king for to
do righteousness and justice. She gave then to the king an hundred and
twenty besants of gold, many aromatics, and gems precious. There were
never seen tofor