Solomon & The Temple

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

If I shut up heaven, and there fall no rain, or if I give orders, and command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people:

And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.

My eyes also shall be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in this place.

For I have chosen, and have sanctified this place, that my name may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there perpetually.

And as for thee, if thou walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and keep my justices and my judgments:

I will raise up the throne of thy kingdom, as I promised to David thy father, saying: There shall not fail thee a man of thy stock to be ruler in Israel.

But if you turn away, and forsake my justices, and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve strange gods, and adore them,

I will pluck you up by the root out of my land which I have given you: and this house which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast away from before my face, and will make it a byword, and an example among all nations.

And this house shall be for a proverb to all that pass by, and they shall be astonished and say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house?

And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped them: therefore all these evils are come upon them.

And at the end of twenty years after Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house:

He built the cities which Hiram had given to Solomon, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.

He went also into Emath Suba, and possessed it.

And he built Palmira in the desert, and he built other strong cities in Emath.

And he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, walled cities with gates and bars and locks.

Balaath also and all the strong cities that were Solomon's, and all the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the horsemen. All that Solomon had a mind, and designed, he built in Jerusalem and in Libanus, and in all the land of his dominion.

All the people that were left of the Hethites, and the Amorrhites, and the Pherezites, and the Hevites, and the Jebusites, that were not of the stock of Israel:

Of their children, and of the posterity, whom the children of Israel had not slain, Solomon made to be the tributaries, unto this day.

But of the children of Israel he set none to serve in the king's works: for they were men of war, and chief captains, and rulers of his chariots and horsemen.

And all the chief captains of king Solomon's army were two hundred and fifty, who taught the people.

And he removed the daughter of Pharao from the city of David, to the house which he had built for her. For the king said: My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, for it is sanctified: because the ark of the Lord came into it.

Then Solomon offered holocausts to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord which he had built before the porch,

That every day an offering might be made on it according to the ordinance of Moses, in the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the festival days three times a year, that is to say, in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.

And he appointed according to the order of David his father the offices of the priests in their ministries: and the Levites in their order to give praise, and minister before the priests according to the duty of every day: and the porters in their divisions by gate and gate: for so David the man of God had commanded.