Dedication of Yahweh’s house
1When Solomon had finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and burned up the sacrifices that had been offered; and the Glory of Yahweh filled the Temple. 2The priests could not enter the temple of Yahweh’s House because the glory of Yahweh filled his house. 3All the people of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the Glory of God resting on the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the earth; they worshiped and gave praise to Yahweh, “for he is good, for his love is everlasting.” 4Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before Yahweh. 5King Solomon offered twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep in sacrifice; and so the king and all the people dedicated Yahweh’s House. 6The priests stood in their places, and also the Levites who gave praise to Yahweh on the instruments that David had made to accompany the canticles of Yahweh, “for his love is everlasting.” They played and sang the hymns of praise that David had composed. By their side were the priests sounding the trumpet, while all Israel stood.
7Solomon consecrated the inside part of the court that is in front of Yahweh’s House; he offered the burnt offering there and the fatty parts of the peace offerings since the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering, the grain offering and the fatty part. 8Solomon then celebrated the feast for seven days. Enormous crowds of Israelites gathered together with him from the Pass of Hamath to the border of Egypt. 9On the eighth day they held a closing celebration, for they had been seven days celebrating the dedication of the altar. 10On the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon dismissed the people who returned to their homes, rejoicing and with happy hearts for the goodness Yahweh had shown to David, to Solomon and to his people Israel.
11Solomon finished Yahweh’s House and the royal palace and successfully concluded all he had set himself to do in both of them. 12Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon in the night and said, “I have heard your prayer. I choose this house to be the place where sacrifices are to be offered to me. 13When I close the skies and there is no rain, when I command the locust to devour the land, when I send an epidemic among my people, 14and my people who bear my name humble themselves, and pray and look for me, and turn from their wicked ways then I myself will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and restore their land. 15From now on, my eyes are open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is offered in this place. 16From now on, I have chosen and consecrated this house as the place where my name will be forever; my eyes and my heart will be there forever.
17For your part, if you serve me faithfully as David your father did, if you do all that I order you and keep my statutes and my ordinances, 18I will make your royal throne secure, according to the promise I made to David your father when I said: Israel will always be ruled by one of your descendants. 19But if you turn away from me and forsake the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20then I will cast the Israelites out from the land I have given them, and I will reject this house that I have consecrated as the place where my Name would be, so that it may be an example for all the nations. 21All those who pass by this place which is now so exalted, will be astounded; they will whistle and say, ‘Why has Yahweh treated this country and this Temple like this?’ 22And the answer will be, ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods, which they worshiped and served; that is why he has brought all these disasters on them.’”
