Solomon again meets God

9 Now once Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and everything else he wanted to accomplish, ² the Lord appeared to him a second time in the same way he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ The Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your cry to me. I have set apart this temple that you built, to put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. ⁴ As for you, if you walk before me just as your father David did, with complete dedication and honesty, and if you do all that I have commanded, and keep my regulations and case laws, ⁵ then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, just as I promised your father David, ‘You will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ ⁶ However, if you or your sons turn away from following me and don’t observe the commands and regulations that I gave you, and go to serve other gods, and worship them, ⁷ then I will remove Israel from the land I gave them and I will reject the temple that I dedicated for my name. Israel will become a joke, insulted by everyone. ⁸ Everyone who passes by this temple, so lofty now,^[a] will be shocked and will whistle, wondering, Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and this temple? ⁹ The answer will come: Because they deserted the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt’s land. They embraced other gods, worshipping and serving them. That is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.”