¹¹ So Solomon finished the Lord’s temple and the royal palace. Everything that had entered Solomon’s heart to do for the Lord’s temple and for his own palace succeeded.^(A)

The Lord’s Response

¹² Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him:

I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple of sacrifice.^{(B) 13} If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on my people,^{(C) 14} and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.^{(D) 15} My eyes will now be open and my ears attentive to prayer from this place.^{(E) 16} And I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.^(F)

¹⁷ As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, ¹⁸ I will establish your royal throne, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man ruling in Israel.^(G)

¹⁹ However, if you turn away and abandon my statutes and my commands that I have set before you and if you go and serve other gods and bow in worship to them,^{(H) 20} then I will uproot Israel from the soil that I gave them, and this temple that I have sanctified for my name I will banish from my presence;^(I) I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.^{(J) 21} As for this temple, which was exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will say,^(K) “Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?” ²² Then they will say, “Because they abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They clung to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, he brought all this ruin on them.”