2 Chronicles 6

Solomon Blesses the Assembly and Prays

1Then Solomon said: “Yahweh has said that he would dwell in the thick cloud; 2and I, for my part, have built you a princely house, a fixed place for you to dwell in for ever.” 3Then the king turned round and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while the whole assembly of Israel stood. 4He said: “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who spoke with his own mouth to my father David and with his own hands has carried it out. He said: 5‘Ever since I brought my people up out of the land of Egypt, I have not picked out a city from any tribe of Israel for a house to be built where my name would be, nor picked out a man to be leader over my people Israel; 6Jerusalem, though, I chose, that my name might rest there, and David I chose to be over my people Israel.’ 7My father David had it in mind to build a house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel; 8but Yahweh said to my father David, ‘Since it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well to have that in your heart. 9Yet you are not the one to build the house: your son, who will come from your own body — he will build the house for my name.’ 10Yahweh has now made good the word he spoke: I have risen in my father David’s place and sit on the throne of Israel, as Yahweh promised, and I have built the house for the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, 11and there I have placed the ark, which holds the covenant Yahweh made with the Israelites.” 12Then, in front of the altar of Yahweh and facing the whole assembly of Israel, he took his stand and spread out his hands. 13For Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had set it in the middle of the courtyard. He stood on it, then knelt before the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven 14and said: “Yahweh, God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and faithful love toward your servants who walk before you with their whole heart. 15You have kept toward your servant David my father what you promised him: what you spoke with your mouth you have fulfilled with your hand, as it is today. 16And now, Yahweh, God of Israel, keep toward your servant David my father what you promised him when you said, ‘You shall never lack a man before me to sit on the throne of Israel, provided your sons watch their way and walk in my law as you have walked before me.’ 17And now, Yahweh, God of Israel, let the word you spoke to your servant David prove true. 18But will God really live with human beings on the earth? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you — how much less this house that I have built! 19Yet turn to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, Yahweh my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer your servant is praying before you: 20that your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, toward the place where you promised to put your name, and that you may listen to the prayer your servant prays toward this place. 21Listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from where you dwell, from heaven — hear and forgive.

Whoever Prays Toward This House

22If someone wrongs his neighbour and is put under oath to swear, and the oath is sworn before your altar in this house, 23then hear from heaven and act: judge between your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing his own conduct down on his head, and clearing the innocent by giving him what his innocence deserves. 24If your people Israel are beaten before an enemy because they have sinned against you, and they turn back and acknowledge your name and pray and plead with you in this house, 25then hear from heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the ground you gave to them and to their ancestors. 26When the heavens are shut and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin because you have humbled them, 27then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants and of your people Israel; teach them the good road they are to walk, and send rain on your land, which you gave your people as their inheritance. 28If there is famine in the land, or plague; if there is blight or mildew, locust or grub; if their enemies press them hard in the land of their own towns — whatever the affliction, whatever the illness — 29then whatever prayer, whatever plea any single person or all your people Israel may make, each one knowing his own affliction and his own pain and spreading out his hands toward this house, 30hear from heaven, the place where you dwell, and forgive; give to each according to everything he has done, since you know his heart — for you alone know the heart of every human being — 31so that they may hold you in awe and walk in your ways as long as they live on the face of the land you gave our ancestors. 32And the foreigner too, who does not belong to your people Israel but comes from a distant land for the sake of your great name, your strong hand and your outstretched arm — when they come and pray toward this house, 33hear from heaven, the place where you dwell, and do everything the foreigner calls to you for, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and hold you in awe as your people Israel do, and may know that your name is proclaimed over this house I have built. 34When your people go out to war against their enemies on the road you send them by, and they pray to you facing this city you have chosen and the house I have built for your name, 35then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause. 36When they sin against you — for there is no one who does not sin — and you grow angry with them and hand them over to an enemy, and their captors carry them off to a land far away or near, 37and then they take it to heart in the land where they are held captive, and turn back and plead with you in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have gone astray, we have done wrong,’ 38and they come back to you with their whole heart and their whole soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray facing their land, which you gave their ancestors, and the city you have chosen, and the house I have built for your name, 39then hear from heaven, the place where you dwell, their prayer and their pleas; uphold their cause and forgive your people who have sinned against you. 40Now, my God, let your eyes be open, I beg you, and your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. 41And now rise, Yahweh God, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength. Let your priests, Yahweh God, be clothed in salvation, and let those faithful to you delight in what is good. 42Yahweh God, do not turn away the face of your anointed ones. Remember the acts of faithful love done for David your servant.”*