1 Kings 9:1-9

Evangelical Heritage Version

I have heard your prayer and the plea for mercy that you offered before me. I have consecrated this house, which you built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

⁴ As for you, if you walk before me in purity of heart and with integrity as your father David did, so that you carry out everything that I command you, and you keep all my statutes and my ordinances, ⁵ then I will maintain your royal throne over Israel forever, just as I said to your father David, “You will not fail to have a man upon the throne of Israel.”

⁶ But if any of you^[a] or your sons turn away from me and do not keep my commands and statutes, which I set before you, but you serve other gods and bow down to them, ⁷ then I will cut off Israel from the face of the ground which I gave them. I will take my presence away from the house which I consecrated for my Name. Israel will become proverbial as an object of ridicule for all peoples.

⁸ Though this house is now exalted,^[b] all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss^[c] and say, “Why did the Lord do this to this land and to this house?”

⁹ They will reply, “Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and worshipped and served them. That is why the Lord brought all this evil on them.”