1 Kings 8:19-44

¹⁹However, you are not the one who I want to build it. It is one of your sons, who I want to build a temple for me.’

²⁰And now Yahweh has done what he promised to do. I have become the king of Israel to succeed my father, and I am ruling my people, like Yahweh promised. I have arranged for this temple to be built for us Israelis to worship Yahweh, the God, to whom we Israelis belong.

²¹I have also provided a place in the temple for the Sacred Chest in which are the two stone tablets on which are engraved the Ten Commandments of the agreement that Yahweh made with our ancestors when he brought them out of Egypt.”

²²Then Solomon stood in front of the altar which was facing the Israeli people who had gathered there. He spread out his arms toward heaven,

²³and he prayed, “Yahweh, the God whom we Israeli people belong to/worship, there is no god like you up in heaven or down here on the earth. You solemnly promised that you would faithfully love us. And that is what you have done for us who earnestly do what you want us to do.

²⁴You have done the things that you promised my father David, who served you very well, that you would do. Truly, you promised to do these things for him, and today we see that by your power you have done them.

²⁵So now, Yahweh, the God whom we Israelis belong to/worship, please do the things that you promised my father that you would do. You told him that there would always be some of his descendants who would rule Israel, if they would conduct their lives as he did.

²⁶So now, God of us Israeli people, cause what you promised to do for my father David, who served you well, to happen.

²⁷But God, you cannot really live on the earth. There is surely not enough space for you in the sky, or even in the heaven. So there is surely not enough space for you to live in this temple that my workers have built.

²⁸But Yahweh, my God, please listen to me while I am praying to you this day,

²⁹Please keep protecting this temple night and day. This is the place about which you have said, ‘I will always be there.’ I request that you listen to me whenever I turn toward this temple and pray.

³⁰I request that when I pray to you and your people pray to you while they turn toward this place, that in your home in heaven you will hear us and forgive us for the sins that we have committed.

³¹If someone is accused of doing something wrong to another person, and they bring him to your altar outside this holy temple, and if he says, ‘I did not do that; may God punish me if I am not telling the truth,’

³²then you listen from heaven, and decide who is telling the truth. Then punish the person who is guilty as he deserves to be punished, and declare that the other person is innocent.

³³And when your Israeli people are defeated by their enemies in a battle because they have sinned against you, and if they are forced to go to some distant country, if they turn away from their sinful behavior and turn toward this temple and admit that you have justly punished them, and if they plead that you will forgive them,

³⁴listen to them from heaven, and forgive your Israeli people for the sins that they have committed, and bring them back to this land that you gave to our ancestors.

³⁵And when you do not allow any rain to fall on the land because your people have sinned against you, if they turn toward this temple and admit that you have justly punished them, if they turn away from their sinful behavior and humbly pray to you,

³⁶listen to them from heaven, and forgive your Israeli people for the sins that they have committed. Teach them the right way to conduct their lives. Then send rain on this land that you have given to your people to belong to them permanently.

³⁷And when the people of this land experience famines, or if there is a plague/illness that causes many people to become sick, or if their crops are destroyed by very hot winds or by mildew or by locusts or grasshoppers, or when their enemies surround any of their cities in order to attack them, if any of those bad things happen to them,

³⁸when your Israeli people earnestly plead with you knowing that they are suffering because they have sinned, and if they stretch out their arms toward this temple and pray,

³⁹listen to them from your home in heaven, and forgive them, and help them. You are the only one who knows what people are thinking, so act toward everyonee as they deserve,

⁴⁰in order that your people may then have an awesome respect for you, all the years that they live in this land that you gave to our ancestors.

⁴¹There will be some foreigners who do not belong to your Israeli people who have come here from countries far away because they have heard that you are very great and that you perform great miracles. If they come here to this temple to worship you and pray,

⁴³in your home in heaven, listen to their prayers, and do for them what they request you to do. Do that so that all the people-groups in the world will know about you and revere you, like we your Israeli people do. And then they will know that this temple that I have caused to be built to honor you, is where you should be worshiped.

⁴⁴And if you send your people to go to fight against their enemies, if they pray to you, wherever they are, if they turn toward this city that you have chosen and toward this temple that I have caused to be built for you,