1 Kings 8:29-55

²⁹May you watch over this Temple day and night, caring for the place where you said you would be honored. May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place,

³⁰and may you hear the request of your servant and your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Please hear from heaven where you live. May you hear and forgive.

³¹When someone sins against another and is required to take an oath before your altar in this Temple,

³²listen from heaven—act and judge your servants. Pay back the guilty; vindicate and reward those who do right.

³³When your people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and if they come back in repentance to you, praying for forgiveness in this Temple,

³⁴then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their forefathers.

³⁵If the skies are closed shut and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and if they come back in repentance to you, turning away from their sin because you have punished them,

³⁶then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the good way so that they can walk on it, and send rain on the earth that you have given to your people as their possession.

³⁷If there is famine in the land, or disease, or blight or mildew on the crops, or if there are locusts or caterpillars, or if an enemy comes to lay siege to the towns in the land—it can be whatever kind of plague or whatever kind of disease—

³⁸then whatever kind of prayer or whatever kind of appeal is made by anyone or all your people Israel, in fact anyone who, knowing their problems and pains, prays toward this Temple,

³⁹then hear from heaven, the place where you live, and forgive. Give according to the way they live their lives, for you know what people are really like inside, and you alone know the true character of people.

⁴⁰Then they will respect you and follow your ways all the time they live in the land you gave to our forefathers.

⁴¹As for the foreigners who do not belong to your people Israel but who come from a distant land,

⁴²having heard of your great nature and power and ability to help, when they come and pray toward this Temple,

⁴³then hear from heaven, the place where you live, and give them what they're asking. That way, everyone on earth will come to know and respect you, just as your own people Israel do. They will also know that this Temple I have built is dedicated to you.

⁴⁴When your people go to fight against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you towards the city you have chosen and the house I have built to honor you,

⁴⁵then hear from heaven what they are praying and asking for, and support their cause.

⁴⁶If they sin against you—and there is nobody who does not sin—you may become angry with them and hand them over to an enemy who takes them away as prisoners to a foreign land, near or far away.

⁴⁷But if they think again in their land of captivity and repent and plead for mercy from you, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly,’

⁴⁸and they come back to you with complete sincerity in their thoughts and attitudes there in their land of captivity; and they pray towards the land you gave their forefathers, the city you chose, and the Temple I have built to honor you,

⁴⁹then hear from heaven, the place where you live, respond and support their cause.

⁵⁰Forgive your people who have sinned against you, all the rebellious acts they have committed against you. Please make those who have captured them show mercy to them.

⁵¹For they are your people—they belong to you! You led them out of Egypt, out of the middle of furnace used for smelting iron.

⁵²May you pay attention to the requests of your servant, and to the requests of your people Israel, and may you respond whenever they call out to you.

⁵³For you set them apart from all the nations of the world as a people who belonged to you, just as you declared through your servant Moses when you led our fathers out of Egypt.”

⁵⁴After Solomon finished praying all these prayers and requests to the Lord, he stood up before the altar of the Lord, where he had been kneeling with his hands held out toward heaven.

⁵⁵Solomon stood, and in a loud voice he blessed the whole assembly of Israel, saying,