The Final Prayer

⁵⁴ After Solomon had finished praying to the Lord, he stood up in front of the altar, where he had been kneeling with uplifted hands. ⁵⁵ In a loud voice he asked God's blessings on all the people assembled there. He said, ^56 (A)“Praise the Lord who has given his people peace, as he promised he would. He has kept all the generous promises he made through his servant Moses. ⁵⁷ May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us or abandon us; ⁵⁸ may he make us obedient to him, so that we will always live as he wants us to live, keeping all the laws and commands he gave our ancestors. ⁵⁹ May the Lord our God remember at all times this prayer and these petitions I have made to him. May he always be merciful to the people of Israel and to their king, according to their daily needs. ⁶⁰ And so all the nations of the world will know that the Lord alone is God—there is no other. ⁶¹ May you, his people, always be faithful to the Lord our God, obeying all his laws and commands as you do today.”

The Dedication of the Temple^(B)

⁶² Then King Solomon and all the people there offered sacrifices to the Lord. ⁶³ He sacrificed 22,000 head of cattle and 120,000 sheep as fellowship offerings. And so the king and all the people dedicated the Temple. ⁶⁴ That same day he also consecrated the central part of the courtyard, the area in front of the Temple, and then he offered there the sacrifices burned whole, the grain offerings, and the fat of the animals for the fellowship offerings. He did this because the bronze altar was too small for all these offerings.

⁶⁵ There at the Temple, Solomon and all the people of Israel celebrated the Festival of Shelters for seven^[a] days. There was a huge crowd of people from as far away as Hamath Pass in the north and the Egyptian border in the south. ⁶⁶ On the eighth day Solomon sent the people home. They all praised him and went home happy because of all the blessings that the Lord had given his servant David and his people Israel.