1 Kings 8:54-9:9

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Solomon Blesses the Assembly

⁵⁴ Now when Solomon finished offering all this prayer and this plea to the Lord, he arose from facing the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven; ⁵⁵ he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice:^(A)

⁵⁶ “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise that he spoke through his servant Moses.^{(B) 57} The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors; may he not leave us or abandon us,^{(C) 58} but incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances that he commanded our ancestors.^{(D) 59} Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, ⁶⁰ so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.^{(E) 61} Therefore devote yourselves completely to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”^(F)

Solomon Offers Sacrifices

⁶² Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord.^{(G) 63} Solomon offered as sacrifices of well-being to the Lord twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. ⁶⁴ The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord, for there he offered the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being.^(H)

⁶⁵ So Solomon held the festival at that time and all Israel with him—a great assembly, people from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi of Egypt—before the Lord our God, seven days.^{[a](I) 66} On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their tents joyful and in good spirits because of all the goodness that the Lord had shown to his servant David and to his people Israel.

God Appears Again to Solomon

9 When Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build,^{(J) 2} the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.^{(K) 3} The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea that you made before me; I have consecrated this house that you have built and put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.^{(L) 4} As for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances,^{(M) 5} then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, ‘You shall never lack a successor on the throne of Israel.’^(N)

⁶ “If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you but go and serve other gods and worship them,^{(O) 7} then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples.^{(P) 8} This house will become a heap of ruins;^[b] everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this house?’^{(Q) 9} Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, worshiping them and serving them; therefore the Lord brought this disaster upon them.’ ”