Bible Verses About Dedication

For you made a distinction between them and all the peoples of the earth by making them your inheritance, as you said through Moshe your servant when you brought our ancestors out of Egypt, Adonai ELOHIM."

When Shlomo had finished praying all this prayer and plea to ADONAI, he got up from in front of the altar of ADONAI, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out toward heaven,

stood up, and raised his voice to bless the whole community of Isra'el. He said,

"Blessed be ADONAI, who has given rest to his people Isra'el, in accordance with everything he promised. Not one word has failed of his good promise, which he made through Moshe his servant.

May ADONAI our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he never leave us or abandon us.

In this way he will incline our hearts toward him, so that we will live according to his ways and observe his mitzvot, laws and rulings which he ordered our fathers to obey.

May these words of mine, which I have used in my plea before ADONAI, be present with ADONAI our God day and night, so that he will uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Isra'el day by day.

Then all the peoples of the earth will know that ADONAI is God; there is no other.

So be wholehearted with ADONAI our God, living by his laws and observing his mitzvot, as you are doing today."

Then the king, together with all Isra'el, offered sacrifices before ADONAI.

For the sacrifice of peace offerings which Shlomo offered to ADONAI, he offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Thus the king and all the people of Isra'el dedicated the house of ADONAI.

So Shlomo celebrated the festival at that time for seven days, together with all Isra'el, an enormous gathering; [they had come all the way] from the entrance of Hamat to the Vadi [of Egypt].

On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, having observed the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days.

Then, on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents full of joy and glad of heart for all the goodness ADONAI had shown to David, to Shlomo and to Isra'el his people.

The people of Isra'el, the cohanim, the L'vi'im and the other people from the exile joyfully dedicated this house of God.

At the dedication of this house of God they offered 100 young bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and, as a sin offering for all Isra'el, twelve male goats, corresponding to the number of the tribes of Isra'el.

At the dedication of the wall of Yerushalayim, they sought out the L'vi'im from wherever they had settled to bring them to Yerushalayim and celebrate the dedication with hymns of thanksgiving and with songs accompanied by cymbals, lutes and lyres.

The trained singers assembled together from the area around Yerushalayim, the villages of the N'tofati,

Beit-Gilgal and the region of Geva and 'Azmavet; for the singers had built villages for themselves all around Yerushalayim.

The cohanim and L'vi'im first purified themselves; then they purified the people, the gates and the wall;

and after that I brought the leaders of Y'hudah up onto the wall and appointed two large choirs to give thanks and to walk in procession. One went to the right on the wall toward the Dung Gate.

After them went Hosha'yah and half of the leaders of Y'hudah,

together with 'Azaryah, 'Ezra, Meshulam,

Y'hudah, Binyamin, Sh'ma'yah and Yirmeyah.

With them were some of the sons of the cohanim carrying trumpets, namely, Z'kharyah the son of Yonatan the son of Sh'ma'yah, the son of Mattanyah, the son of Mikhayah, the son of Zakur, the son of Asaf,