^2 (A)The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the Lord.

^43 (A)He walked in all the way of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. Yet ^(B)the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

^2 (A)You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, ^(B)on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. ³ You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces ^(C)their pillars and burn their ^(D)Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and ^(E)destroy their name out of that place. ^4 (F)You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. ⁵ But you shall seek ^(G)the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation^[a] there. There you shall go,

⁴⁷ But it was ^(A)Solomon who built a house for him. ^48 (B)Yet the Most High does not dwell ^(C)in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,

^17 (A)Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

³ But God said to me, ^(A)‘You may not build a house for my name, for you are a man of war and have shed blood.’ ⁴ Yet the Lord God of Israel ^(B)chose me from all my father's house to be king over Israel ^(C)forever. ^(D)For he chose Judah as leader, and in the house of Judah my father's ^(E)house, and among my father's sons he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel. ⁵ And of ^(F)all my sons (for the Lord has given me many sons) he ^(G)has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. ⁶ He said to me, ‘It is ^(H)Solomon your son who shall build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.

⁴ “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: ^(A)It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in. ⁵ For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel to this day, ^(B)but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling. ⁶ In all places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’

^3 (A)“You know that David my father could not build a house for the name of the Lord his God ^(B)because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him, until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet.

³⁰ And ^(A)I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and ^(B)cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.