Solomon & The Temple

And Jehovah appeareth unto Solomon by night, and saith to him, `I have heard thy prayer, and have fixed on this place to Me for a house of sacrifice.

If I restrain the heavens and there is no rain, and if I lay charge on the locust to consume the land, and if I send pestilence among My people--

and My people on whom My name is called be humbled, and pray, and seek My face, and turn back from their evil ways, then I--I hear from the heavens, and forgive their sin, and heal their land.

`Now, Mine eyes are open, and Mine ears attentive, to the prayer of this place;

and now, I have chosen and sanctified this house for My name being there unto the age; yea, Mine eyes and My heart have been there all the days.

`And thou, if thou dost walk before Me as David thy father walked, even to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and My statutes and My judgments dost keep--

then I have established the throne of thy kingdom, as I covenanted with David thy father, saying, There is not cut off a man to thee--a ruler in Israel;

and if ye turn back--ye--and have forsaken My statutes, and My commands, that I have placed before you, and have gone and served other gods, and bowed yourselves to them--then I have plucked them from off My ground that I have given to them,

and this house that I have sanctified for My name, I cast from before My face, and make it for a proverb, and for a byword, among all the peoples.

`And this house that hath been high, to every one passing by it, is an astonishment, and he hath said, Wherefore hath Jehovah done thus to this land, and to this house?

and they have said, Because that they have forsaken Jehovah, God of their fathers, who brought them out from the land of Egypt, and lay hold on other gods, and bow themselves to them, and serve them, therefore He hath brought upon them all this evil.'

And it cometh to pass, at the end of twenty years, that Solomon hath built the house of Jehovah, and his own house.

As to the cities that Huram hath given to Solomon, Solomon hath built them, and there he causeth the sons of Israel to dwell.

And Solomon goeth to Hamath-Zobah, and layeth hold upon it;

and he buildeth Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the cities of store that he hath built in Hamath.

And he buildeth Beth-Horon the upper, and Beth-Horon the lower--cities of defence, with walls, two-leaved doors, and bar--

and Baalath, and all the cities of store that Solomon had, and all the cities of the chariot, and the cities of the horsemen, and all the desire of Solomon that he desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

All the people who are left of the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, who are not of Israel--

of their sons who have been left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel consumed not--doth Solomon lift up a tribute unto this day.

And none of the sons of Israel hath Solomon made servants for his work, but they are men of war, and heads of his captains, and heads of his charioteers, and of his horsemen;

and these are heads of the officers whom king Solomon hath, two hundred and fifty who are rulers among the people.

And the daughter of Pharaoh hath Solomon brought up from the city of David to the house that he built for her, for he said, `My wife doth not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, for they are holy unto whom hath come the ark of Jehovah.'

Then hath Solomon caused to ascend burnt-offerings to Jehovah on the altar of Jehovah that he built before the porch,

even by the matter of a day in its day, to cause to ascend according to the command of Moses, on sabbaths, and on new moons, and on appointed seasons, three times in a year--in the feast of unleavened things, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of booths.

And he establisheth, according to the ordinance of David his father, the courses of the priests over their service, and of the Levites over their charges, to praise and to minister over-against the priests, according to the matter of a day in its day, and the gatekeepers in their courses at gate and gate, for so is the command of David the man of God.