Solomon & The Temple

And Jehovah appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;

if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent, unto the prayer that is made in this place.

For now have I chosen and hallowed this house, that my name may be there for ever; and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and mine ordinances;

then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel.

But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;

then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And this house, which is so high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall say, Why hath Jehovah done thus unto this land, and to this house?

And they shall answer, Because they forsook Jehovah, the God of their fathers, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.

And it came to pass at the end of twenty years, wherein Solomon had built the house of Jehovah, and his own house,

that the cities which Huram had given to Solomon, Solomon built them, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.

And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah, and prevailed against it.

And he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store-cities, which he built in Hamath.

Also he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, fortified cities, with walls, gates, and bars;

and Baalath, and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

As for all the people that were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, that were not of Israel;

of their children that were left after them in the land, whom the children of Israel consumed not, of them did Solomon raise a levy of bondservants unto this day.

But of the children of Israel did Solomon make no servants for his work; but they were men of war, and chief of his captains, and rulers of his chariots and of his horsemen.

And these were the chief officers of king Solomon, even two hundred and fifty, that bare rule over the people.

And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her; for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of Jehovah hath come.

Then Solomon offered burnt-offerings unto Jehovah on the altar of Jehovah, which he had built before the porch,

even as the duty of every day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the set feasts, three times in the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.

And he appointed, according to the ordinance of David his father, the courses of the priests to their service, and the Levites to their offices, to praise, and to minister before the priests, as the duty of every day required; the doorkeepers also by their courses at every gate: for so had David the man of God commanded.