Fire from Heaven, and the Dedication
1As Solomon ended his prayer, fire fell from the heavens and devoured the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of Yahweh filled the house. 2The priests could not go into the house of Yahweh, because the glory of Yahweh had filled it. 3All the Israelites, watching the fire come down and the glory of Yahweh over the house, knelt with their faces to the ground on the pavement, worshipped, and gave thanks to Yahweh: “He is good; his faithful love lasts for ever.” 4The king, and the people with him, were offering sacrifice before Yahweh. 5King Solomon sacrificed twenty-two thousand head of cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 6The priests were standing at their posts, and the Levites with the instruments for Yahweh’s music that King David had made for giving thanks to Yahweh — “his faithful love lasts for ever” — whenever David offered praise through them; and facing them the priests sounded trumpets, while all Israel stood. 7Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of Yahweh, for it was there that he presented the burnt offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, since the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering, the grain offering and the fat. 8At that time Solomon kept the festival for seven days, and all Israel with him — a very great assembly, from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. 9A closing assembly was held on the eighth day, since the dedication of the altar had taken seven days and the festival seven more. 10On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people home to their tents, glad and warm at heart over the good that Yahweh had done for David, for Solomon and for his people Israel. 11So Solomon completed the house of Yahweh and the royal palace, and everything he had set his heart on doing in the house of Yahweh and in his own house he brought off successfully.
Yahweh Answers by Night
12Then Yahweh appeared to Solomon at night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send plague among my people, 14and if my people, over whom my name is proclaimed, bow low, and pray, and look for my face, and leave their evil roads behind, I will listen from the heavens, pardon their sin and restore their land to health. 15From now on my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. 16For I have now chosen and consecrated this house, so that my name may be there for all time; my eyes and my heart will be there always. 17As for you — if you walk before me as your father David walked, doing all I have commanded you, and keep my statutes and my rulings, 18I will make the throne of your kingdom secure, as I covenanted with your father David when I said, ‘You shall never lack a man to rule in Israel.’ 19But if you turn away and abandon the statutes and the commands I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, 20then I will tear them up from my ground, which I gave them, and this house, which I consecrated for my name, I will hurl out of my sight and make it a byword and a taunt among all the peoples. 21And this house, once so lofty — everyone passing by will be appalled at it and will say, ‘Why has Yahweh done this to this land and to this house?’ 22And the answer will be: ‘Because they abandoned Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and took hold of other gods and bowed to them and served them. That is why he has brought all this disaster on them.’”
