1 Kings 8:24-60

²⁴who hast kept with thy servant David my father that which thou didst promise him; thou spokest with thy mouth, and hast fulfilled it with thy hand, as at this day.

²⁵And now, Jehovah, God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that which thou hast promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only thy sons take heed to their way, to walk before me as thou hast walked before me.

²⁶And now, O God of Israel, let thy words, I pray thee, be verified, which thou hast spoken unto thy servant David my father.

²⁷But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!

²⁸Yet have respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, Jehovah, my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee this day;

²⁹that thine eyes may be open upon this house night and day, upon the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.

³⁰And hearken unto the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place, and hear thou in thy dwelling-place, in the heavens, and when thou hearest, forgive.

³¹If a man have sinned against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to adjure him, and the oath come before thine altar in this house;

³²then hear thou in the heavens, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way upon his own head; and justifying the righteous, giving him according to his righteousness.

³³When thy people Israel are put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house;

³⁴then hear thou in the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land that thou gavest unto their fathers.

³⁵When the heavens are shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, because thou hast afflicted them;

³⁶then hear thou in the heavens, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, when thou teachest them the good way wherein they should walk; and give rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance.

³⁷If there be famine in the land, if there be pestilence, if there be blight, mildew, locust, caterpillar; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their gates; whatever plague, whatever sickness there be:

³⁸what prayer, what supplication soever be made by any man, of all thy people Israel, when they shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and shall spread forth his hands toward this house;

³⁹then hear thou in the heavens, the settled place of thy dwelling, and forgive, and do, and render unto every man according to all his ways, whose heart thou knowest (for thou, thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men),

⁴⁰that they may fear thee all the days that they live upon the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

⁴¹And as to the stranger also, who is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake

⁴²(for they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy mighty hand, and of thy stretched-out arm); when he shall come and pray toward this house,

⁴³hear thou in the heavens thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; in order that all peoples of the earth may know thy name, and that they may fear thee as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name.

⁴⁴If thy people go out to battle against their enemy, by the way that thou shalt send them, and they pray to Jehovah toward the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name;

⁴⁵then hear thou in the heavens their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their right.

⁴⁶If they have sinned against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and give them up to the enemy, and they have carried them away captives unto the enemy's land, far or near;

⁴⁷and if they shall take it to heart in the land whither they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captive, saying, We have sinned, and have done iniquity, we have dealt perversely;

⁴⁸and if they return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name;

⁴⁹then hear thou in the heavens, the settled place of thy dwelling, their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their right;

⁵⁰and forgive thy people their sin against thee, and all their transgressions whereby they have transgressed against thee, and give them to find compassion with those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them

⁵¹(for they are thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron) —

⁵²thine eyes being open unto the supplication of thy servant, and unto the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken unto them in all that they call for unto thee.

⁵³For thou hast separated them from among all peoples of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spokest through Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord Jehovah.

⁵⁴And it was so, that when Solomon had ended praying all this prayer and supplication to Jehovah, he arose from before the altar of Jehovah, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth to the heavens,

⁵⁵and he stood and blessed the whole congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying,

⁵⁶Blessed be Jehovah, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there has not failed one word of all his good promises which he spoke through Moses his servant!

⁵⁷Jehovah our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let him not forsake us nor cast us off:

⁵⁸that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers.

⁵⁹And let these my words, with which I have made supplication before Jehovah, be nigh to Jehovah our God day and night, that he maintain the right of his servant, and the right of his people Israel, as the matter of each day shall require;

⁶⁰that all peoples of the earth may know that Jehovah is God, that there is none else;