Kings III 8:30-60

³⁰And thou shalt hearken to the prayer of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall pray toward this place; and thou shalt hear in thy dwelling-place in heaven, and thou shalt 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 thine altar in this house,

³²then shalt thou hear from heaven, and do, and thou shalt judge thy 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 thy people Israel falls before enemies, because they shall sin against thee, and they shall return and confess to thy name, and they shall pray and supplicate in this house,

³⁴then shalt thou hear from heaven, and be gracious to the sins of thy people Israel, and thou shalt restore them to the land which thou gavest to their fathers.

³⁵When the heaven is restrained, and there is no rain, because they shall sin against thee, and they shall pray toward this place, and shall make confession to thy name, and shall turn from their sins when thou shalt have humbled them,

³⁶then thou shalt hear from heaven, and be merciful to the sins of thy servant and of thy people Israel; for thou shalt shew them the good way to walk in it, and thou shalt give rain upon the earth which thou hast given to thy 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 shalt thou hearken from heaven, out of thine established dwelling-place, and shalt be merciful, and shalt do, and recompense to every man according to his ways, as thou shalt know his heart, for thou alone knowest the heart of all the children of men:

⁴⁰that they may fear thee all the days that they live upon the land, which thou hast given to our fathers.

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

⁴²when they shall come and pray toward this place,

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

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

⁴⁵then shalt thou hear from heaven their supplication and their prayer, and shalt execute judgment for them.

⁴⁶If it be that they shall sin against thee, (for there is not a man who will not sin,) and thou shalt 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 thee, saying, We have sinned, we have done unjustly, we have transgressed,

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

⁴⁹then shalt thou hear from heaven thine established dwelling-place,

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

⁵¹for they are thy people and thine inheritance, whom thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, out of the midst of the furnace of iron.

⁵²And let thine eyes and thine ears be opened to the supplication of thy servant, and to the supplication of thy people Israel, to hearken to them in all things for which they shall call upon thee.

⁵³Because thou hast set them apart for an inheritance to thyself out of all the nations of the earth, as thou spokest by the hand of thy servant Moses, when thou broughtest our fathers out of the land of Egypt, O Lord God.—

^53aThen 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 thou my house, a beautiful house for thyself 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,

⁵⁶Blessed be the Lord this day, who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he said: there has not failed one word among all his good words which he spoke by the hand of his servant Moses.

⁵⁷May the Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let him not desert us nor turn from us,

⁵⁸that he may turn our hearts toward him to walk in all his ways, and to keep all his commandments, and his ordinances which he commanded our fathers.

⁵⁹And let these words, which I have prayed before the Lord our God, be near to the Lord our God day and night, to maintain the cause of thy servant, and the cause of thy people Israel for ever.

⁶⁰That all the nations of the earth may know that the Lord God, he is God, and there is none beside.