Kings III 8:19-55

¹⁹Nevertheless you shall not build the house, but your son that has proceeded out of your bowels, he shall build the house to my name.

²⁰And the Lord has confirmed the word that he spoke, and I am risen up in the place of my father David, and I have sat down on the throne of Israel, as the Lord spoke, and I have built the house to the name of the Lord God of Israel.

²¹And I have set there a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord, which the Lord made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²²And Solomon stood up in front of the altar before all the congregation of Israel; and he spread out his hands towards heaven:

²³and he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above and on the earth beneath, keeping covenant and mercy with your servant who walks before you with all his heart;

²⁴which you have kept towards your servant David my father: for you have spoken by your mouth and you have fulfilled it with your hands, as at this day.

²⁵And now, O Lord God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father, the promises which you have spoken to him, saying, There shall not be taken from you a man sitting before me on the throne of Israel, provided only your children shall take heed to their ways, to walk before me as you have walked before me.

²⁶And now, O Lord God of Israel, let, I pray you, your word to David my father be confirmed.

²⁷But will God indeed dwell with men upon the earth? if the heaven and heaven of heavens will not suffice you, how much less even this house which I have built to your name?

²⁸Yet, O Lord God of Israel, you shall look upon my petition, to hear the prayer which your servant prays to you in your presence this day,

²⁹that your eyes may be open towards this house day and night, even towards the place which you said, My name shall be there, to hear the prayer which your servant prays at this place day and night.

³⁰And you shall listen to the prayer of your servant, and of your people Israel, which they shall pray towards this place; and you shall hear in your dwelling-place in heaven, and you shall do and be gracious.

³¹Whatsoever trespasses any one shall commit against his neighbour,—and if he shall take upon him an oath so that he should swear, and he shall come and make confession before your altar in this house,

³²then shall you hear from heaven, and do, and you shall judge your people Israel, that the wicked should be condemned, to recompense his way upon his head; and to justify the righteous, to give to him according to his righteousness.

³³When your people Israel falls before enemies, because they shall sin against you, and they shall return and confess to your name, and they shall pray and supplicate in this house,

³⁴then shall you hear from heaven, and be gracious to the sins of your people Israel, and you shall restore them to the land which you gave to their fathers.

³⁵When the heaven is restrained, and there is no rain, because they shall sin against you, and the shall pray towards this place, and they shall make confession to your name, and shall turn from their sins when you shall have humbled them,

³⁶then you shall hear from heaven, and be merciful to the sins of your servant and of your people Israel; for you shall show them the good way to walk in it, and you shall give rain upon the earth which you have given to your people for an inheritance.

³⁷If there should be famine, if there should be death, because there should be blasting, locust, or if there be mildew, and if their enemy oppress them in any one of their cities, with regard to every calamity, every trouble,

³⁸every prayer, every supplication whatever shall be made by any man, as they shall know each the plague of his heart, and shall spread abroad his hands to this house,

³⁹then shall you listen from heaven, out of your established dwelling-place, and shall be merciful, and shall do, and recompense to every man according to his ways, as you shall know his heart, for you alone know the heart of all the children of men:

⁴⁰that they may fear you all the days that they live upon the land, which you have given to our fathers.

⁴¹And for the stranger who is not of your people,

⁴²when they shall come and pray towards this place,

⁴³then shall you hear them from heaven, out of your established dwelling-place, and you shall do according to all that the stranger shall call upon you for, that all the nations may know your name, and fear you, as do your people Israel, and may know that your name has been called on this house which I have builded.

⁴⁴If it be that your people shall go forth to war against their enemies in the way by which you shall turn them, and pray in the name of the Lord towards the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built to your name,

⁴⁵then shall you hear from heaven their supplication and their prayer, and shall execute judgement for them.

⁴⁶If it be that they shall sin against you, (for there is not a man who will not sin,) and you shall bring them and deliver them up before their enemies, and they that take them captive shall carry them to a land far or near,

⁴⁷and they shall turn their hearts in the land whither they have been carried captives, and turn in the land of their sojourning, and supplicate you, saying, We have sinned, we have done unjustly, we have transgressed,

⁴⁸and they shall turn to you with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies whither you have carried them captives, and shall pray to you towards their land which you have given to their fathers, and the city which you have chosen, and the house which I have built to your name:

⁴⁹then shall you hear from heaven your established dwelling-place,

⁵⁰and you shall be merciful to their unrighteousness wherein they have trespassed against you, and according to all their transgressions wherewith they have transgressed against you, and you shall cause them to be pitied before them that carried them captives, and they shall have compassion on them:

⁵¹for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the midst of the furnace of iron.

⁵²And let your eyes and your ears be opened to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them in all things for which they shall call upon you.

⁵³Because you have set them apart for an inheritance to yourself out of all the nations of the earth, as you spoke by the hand of your servant Moses, when you brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, O Lord God.—Then spoke Solomon concerning the house, when he had finished building it—He manifested the sun in the heaven: the Lord said he would dwell in darkness: build you my house, a beautiful house for yourself to dwell in anew. Behold, is not this written in the book of the song?

⁵⁴And it came to pass when Solomon had finished praying to the Lord all this prayer and supplication, that he rose up from before the altar of the Lord, after having knelt upon his knees, and his hands were spread out towards heaven.

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