1 Kings 8:44-53

Living Bible

⁴⁴ “When you send your people out to battle against their enemies and they pray to you, looking toward your chosen city of Jerusalem and toward this Temple that I have built in your name, ⁴⁵ hear their prayer and help them.

⁴⁶ “If they sin against you (and who doesn’t?) and you become angry with them and let their enemies lead them away as captives to some foreign land, whether far or near, ⁴⁷ and they come to their senses and turn to you and cry to you saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong’; ⁴⁸ if they honestly return to you and pray toward this land that you have given their fathers, and toward this city of Jerusalem that you have chosen, and toward this Temple that I have built for your name, ⁴⁹ hear their prayers and pleadings from heaven where you live, and come to their assistance.

⁵⁰ “Forgive your people for all of their evil deeds, and make their captors merciful to them; ⁵¹ for they are your people—your inheritance that you brought out from the Egyptian furnace. ⁵² May your eyes be open and your ears listening to their pleas. O Lord, hear and answer them whenever they cry out to you, ⁵³ for when you brought our fathers out of the land of Egypt, you told your servant Moses that you had chosen Israel from among all the nations of the earth to be your own special people.”