Yahweh’s Challenge to Solomon

9 It happened that as Solomon finished the building of the house of Yahweh, the king’s house, and all the things Solomon desired to do, ² Yahweh appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him in Gibeon. ³ Yahweh said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house which you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. ⁴ As for you, if you walk before me as David your father walked, with integrity of heart^[a] and with uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep my ordinances and my judgments, ⁵ then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘A man will not be cut off for you from upon the throne of Israel.’

⁶ “If ever you or any of your descendants^[b] turn from following me and do not keep my commandments and my ordinances that I have set before you and you go and serve other gods and bow down to them, ⁷ then I will cut Israel off from the face of the land that I have given to them, even the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast away from my face; and Israel shall become a proverb and an object of taunting among all the peoples. ⁸ This house shall become a heap of ruins; all those passing by will be appalled by it and hiss, and they will say, ‘On what account did Yahweh do this to this land and to this house?’ ⁹ And they will say, ‘Because they have forsaken Yahweh their God who brought their ancestors^[c] out from the land of Egypt and they embraced other gods and bowed down to them and served them. Therefore, Yahweh brought on them all of this disaster.’”