1 Kings 8:25-39

²⁵Now therefore, may LORD, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’

²⁶“Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father.

²⁷But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

²⁸Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant and for his supplication, LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you today;

²⁹that your eyes may be open towards this house night and day, even towards the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant prays towards this place.

³⁰Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they pray towards this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.

³¹“If a man sins against his neighbour, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house,

³²then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.

³³“When your people Israel are struck down before the enemy because they have sinned against you, if they turn again to you and confess your name, and pray and make supplication to you in this house,

³⁴then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.

³⁵“When the sky is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray towards this place and confess your name, and turn from their sin when you afflict them,

³⁶then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for an inheritance.

³⁷“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,

³⁸whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands towards this house,

³⁹then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men);