“Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

“Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both.

He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the Lord. No one has taken me in for the night.

This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat.

After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh.

The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was.

Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

The Temple Musicians

These are the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the Lord after the ark came to rest there.

They and their descendants were in charge of guarding the gates of the house of the Lord—the house called the tent of meeting.

Then David said, “The house of the Lord God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

“Now, my son, the Lord be with you, and may you have success and build the house of the Lord your God, as he said you would.

Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.

When they arrived at the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, some of the heads of the families gave freewill offerings toward the rebuilding of the house of God on its site.

In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of the Lord.

With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Praise be to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who has put it into the king’s heart to bring honor to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in this way

Guard them carefully until you weigh them out in the chambers of the house of the Lord in Jerusalem before the leading priests and the Levites and the family heads of Israel.”

“We also assume responsibility for bringing to the house of the Lord each year the firstfruits of our crops and of every fruit tree.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.

in the courts of the house of the Lord— in your midst, Jerusalem. Praise the Lord.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you.