First Kings 8:46-62

⁴⁶Suppose that they sin against you, since there is no one who does not sin, and suppose that you are angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, so that the enemy takes them away captive to their land, whether distant or near.

⁴⁷Then suppose that they realize they are in the land where they have been exiled, and suppose that they repent and seek favor from you from the land of their captors. Suppose that they say, 'We have acted perversely and sinned. We have behaved wickedly.'

⁴⁸Suppose that they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who captured them, and suppose that they pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their ancestors, and toward the city that you chose, and toward the house that I have built for your name.

⁴⁹Then from heaven, the place where you live, listen to their prayer and their request for help, and you will make matters right for them.

⁵⁰Forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and make them objects of compassion before their conquerors, and cause their conquerors to have compassion on them.

⁵¹They are your people whom you have chosen, whom you rescued out of Egypt as if from the middle of a furnace where iron is forged.

⁵²May your eyes be open to the request of your servant and to the requests of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you.

⁵³For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to belong to you and receive your promises, just as you explained by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh.”

⁵⁴So it was that when Solomon had finished praying all this prayer and request to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread out toward the heavens.

⁵⁵He stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying,

⁵⁶“May Yahweh be praised, who has given rest to his people Israel, keeping all his promises. Not one word has failed out of all Yahweh's good promises that he made with Moses his servant.

⁵⁷May Yahweh our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he never leave us or forsake us,

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

⁵⁹Let these words I have spoken, by which I have made request before Yahweh, be near Yahweh our God day and night, so that he may help the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as every day will require;

⁶⁰that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh, he is God, and there is no other God!

⁶¹Therefore let your heart be true to Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes and keep his commandments, as on this day.”

⁶²So the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices to Yahweh.