1 Kings 8:46-9:28

New International Version - UK

⁴⁶ ‘When they sin against you – for there is no one who does not sin – and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive to their own lands, far away or near; ⁴⁷ and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, “We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly”; ⁴⁸ and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you towards the land you gave their ancestors, towards the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name; ⁴⁹ then from heaven, your dwelling-place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. ⁵⁰ And forgive your people, who have sinned against you; forgive all the offences they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy; ⁵¹ for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt, out of that iron-smelting furnace.

⁵² ‘May your eyes be open to your servant’s plea and to the plea of your people Israel, and may you listen to them whenever they cry out to you. ⁵³ For you singled them out from all the nations of the world to be your own inheritance, just as you declared through your servant Moses when you, Sovereign Lord, brought our ancestors out of Egypt.’

⁵⁴ When Solomon had finished all these prayers and supplications to the Lord, he rose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had been kneeling with his hands spread out towards heaven. ⁵⁵ He stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel in a loud voice, saying:

⁵⁶ ‘Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. ⁵⁷ May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. ⁵⁸ May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees and laws he gave our ancestors. ⁵⁹ And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need, ⁶⁰ so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. ⁶¹ And may your hearts be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.’

The dedication of the temple

⁶² Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord. ⁶³ Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the Lord.

⁶⁴ On that same day the king consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the Lord, and there he offered burnt offerings, grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar that stood before the Lord was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings.

⁶⁵ So Solomon observed the festival at that time, and all Israel with him – a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. They celebrated it before the Lord our God for seven days and seven days more, fourteen days in all. ⁶⁶ On the following day he sent the people away. They blessed the king and then went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things the Lord had done for his servant David and his people Israel.

The Lord appears to Solomon

9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, ² the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ The Lord said to him:

‘I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there for ever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

⁴ ‘As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, ⁵ I will establish your royal throne over Israel for ever, as I promised David your father when I said, “You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.”

⁶ ‘But if you^[a] or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you^[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, ⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. ⁸ This temple will become a heap of rubble. All^[c] who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?” ⁹ People will answer, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them – that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.”’

Solomon’s other activities

¹⁰ At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings – the temple of the Lord and the royal palace – ¹¹ King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. ¹² But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. ¹³ ‘What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?’ he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul,^[d] a name they have to this day. ¹⁴ Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents^[e] of gold.

¹⁵ Here is the account of the forced labour King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the terraces,^[f] the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. ¹⁶ (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. ¹⁷ And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, ¹⁸ Baalath, and Tadmor^[g] in the desert, within his land, ¹⁹ as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses^[h] – whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

²⁰ There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites). ²¹ Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land – whom the Israelites could not exterminate^[i] – to serve as slave labour, as it is to this day. ²² But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. ²³ They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon’s projects – 550 officials supervising those who did the work.

²⁴ After Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the terraces.

²⁵ Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, burning incense before the Lord along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.

²⁶ King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.^{[j] 27} And Hiram sent his men – sailors who knew the sea – to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. ²⁸ They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents^[k] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.