If My People Pray

^11 (A)Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished.

The Lord Appears to Solomon

9 ^(A)As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord ^(B)and the king's house and ^(C)all that Solomon desired to build, ^2 (D)the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. ³ And the Lord said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, ^(E)by putting my name there forever. ^(F)My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. ⁴ And as for you, if you will ^(G)walk before me, ^(H)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 rules, ^5 (I)then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ ^6 (J)But 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, ^7 (K)then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, ^(L)and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, ^(M)and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples. ⁸ And this house will become a heap of ruins.^[a] Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say, ^(N)‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ ⁹ Then they will say, ‘Because ^(O)they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this disaster on them.’”

¹⁰ And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart ^(A)found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my ^(B)reward for all my toil. ¹¹ Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was ^(C)vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing ^(D)to be gained under the sun.

Preparing to Build the Temple

2 ^{[a] (A)}Now Solomon purposed to build a temple for the name of the Lord, and a royal palace for himself.

⁴ I made great works. I ^(A)built houses and planted ^(B)vineyards for myself.