²⁴ You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.^(A)

⁵ But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there,^(A)

⁶ but I have chosen Jerusalem in order that my name may be there, and I have chosen David to be over my people Israel.’^(A)

¹⁶ For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.^(A)

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.^(A)

¹¹ Rejoice before the Lord your God—you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you—at the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.^(A)

¹² May the God who has established his name there overthrow any king or people who shall put forth a hand to alter this or to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, make a decree; let it be done with all diligence.”^(A)

²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Death of Rehoboam

¹³ So King Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem and reigned. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.^(A)