1 Kings 8:29-55

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,

⁴⁵listen in heaven to their prayers; listen to what they plead for you to do, and assist them.

⁴⁶It is true that everyone sins. So, if your people sin against you, and you become angry with them, you may allow their enemies to defeat them and capture them and take them away to their enemies' country, even to countries that are far away.

⁴⁷If that happens, while they are in those countries to which they were forced to go, if they sincerely repent and plead with you there saying ‘We have sinned and have done things that are very wicked,’

⁴⁸if they very sincerely repent, and turn toward this land that you gave to our ancestors, and toward this city that you have chosen to be the place where we should worship you, and toward this temple that I have caused to be built for you, and if they pray,

⁴⁹then from your home in heaven listen to them while they plead for your help, and assist them.

⁵⁰Forgive them for all the sins that they have committed against you, and cause their enemies to be kind to them.

⁵¹Do not forget that the Israelis are your people; they are your special possession; you brought our ancestors out of Egypt where they were greatly suffering as though they were in a blazing furnace.

⁵²I request that you always listen to your Israeli people and to me, their king, and heed their prayers whenever they call out to you to help them.

⁵³You chose them from all the other people-groups in the world to belong to you, which is what you told Moses to tell them when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”

⁵⁴After Solomon had finished praying and pleading to Yahweh for his help, he stood up in front of the altar where he had been kneeling. He lifted up his arms.

⁵⁵Then he asked God to bless all the Israeli people. He prayed loudly, saying,