2 Chronicles 7:1–8:18
1 aNow when Solomon had finished praying, bfire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house.
2 aThe priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house.
3 All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, “aTruly He is good, truly His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
4 aThen the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord.
5 King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Thus the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.
6 The priests stood at their posts, and athe Levites also, with the instruments of music to the Lord, which King David had made for giving praise to the Lord—“for His lovingkindness is everlasting”—whenever 1he gave praise by their 2means, while bthe priests on the other side blew trumpets; and all Israel was standing.
7 aThen Solomon consecrated the middle of the court that was before the house of the Lord, for there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to contain the burnt offering, the grain offering and the fat.
8 So aSolomon observed the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly who came from the entrance of Hamath to the bbrook of Egypt.
9 On the eighth day they held aa solemn assembly, for the dedication of the altar they observed seven days and the feast seven days.
10 Then on the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their tents, rejoicing and happy of heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David and to Solomon and to His people Israel.
11 aThus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s palace, and successfully completed all that 1he had planned on doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace.
12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and ahave chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.
13 “aIf 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,
14 aand My people 1who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
15 “aNow My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the 1prayer offered in this place.
16 “For anow I have chosen and consecrated this house that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.
17 “As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, even to do according to all that I have commanded you, and will keep My statutes and My ordinances,
18 then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘1aYou shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’
19 “aBut if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,
20 athen I will uproot you from My land which I have given 1you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight and I will make it ba proverb and a byword among all peoples.
21 “As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘aWhy has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’
22 “And they will say, ‘Because athey forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.’ ”
Solomon’s Activities and Accomplishments
1 aNow it came about at the end of the twenty years in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house
2 that he built the cities which Huram had given to 1him, and settled the sons of Israel there.
3 Then Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it.
4 He built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage cities which he had built in Hamath.
5 He also built upper aBeth-horon and lower Beth-horon, bfortified cities with walls, gates and bars;
6 and Baalath and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for 1his chariots and cities for 1his horsemen, and all that it pleased Solomon to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land 2under his rule.
7 aAll of the people who were left of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel,
8 namely, from their descendants who were left after them in the land whom the sons of Israel had not destroyed, athem Solomon raised as forced laborers to this day.
9 But Solomon did not make slaves for his work from the sons of Israel; they were men of war, his chief captains and commanders of his chariots and his horsemen.
10 These were the chief 1officers of King Solomon, two hundred and fifty who ruled over the people.
11 aThen Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter up from the city of David to the house which he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because 1the places are holy where the ark of the Lord has entered.”
12 Then Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on athe altar of the Lord which he had built before the porch;
13 and adid so according to the daily rule, offering them up baccording to the commandment of Moses, for cthe sabbaths, dthe new moons and the ethree annual feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths.
14 Now according to the ordinance of his father David, he appointed athe divisions of the priests for their service, and bthe Levites for their duties of praise and ministering before the priests according to the daily rule, and cthe gatekeepers by their divisions at every gate; for dDavid the man of God had so commanded.
15 And they did not depart from the commandment of the king to the priests and Levites in any manner or concerning the storehouses.
16 Thus all the work of Solomon was carried out 1from the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord, and until it was finished. So the house of the Lord was completed.
17 Then Solomon went to aEzion-geber and to bEloth on the seashore in the land of Edom.
18 And Huram by his servants sent him ships and servants who knew the sea; and they went with Solomon’s servants to Ophir, and atook from there four hundred and fifty talents of gold and brought them to King Solomon.