2 Chronicles 7

7 ¹ When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of our Father filled the house. ² The priests could not enter the house of our Father, because the glory of our Father had filled it. ³ When all the Israelites saw the fire come down and the glory of our Father on the house, they knelt with their faces to the ground on the pavement, and they worshiped and gave thanks to our Father: "For he is good; his faithful love endures forever."

⁴ Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before our Father. ⁵ King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of our Father. ⁶ The priests stood at their posts, and the Levites took their places with the musical instruments for our Father that King David had made for giving thanks to our Father—"for his faithful love endures forever"—whenever David led praise through them. Across from them the priests sounded the trumpets, and all Israel was standing.

⁷ Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of our Father, for there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar he had made could not hold the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat.

⁸ So at that time Solomon celebrated the feast for seven days, and all Israel with him—a very great gathering, from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt. ⁹ On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, for they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the feast for seven days. ¹⁰ On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their homes, joyful and glad at heart for the goodness our Father had shown to David, to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

Our Father Speaks to Solomon

¹¹ So Solomon finished the house of our Father and the royal palace. Everything that Solomon had set his heart to do in the house of our Father and in his own house he successfully carried out.

¹² Then our Father appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.

¹³ If I close the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send a plague among my children, ¹⁴ if my children, who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. ¹⁵ Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. ¹⁶ For now I have chosen and consecrated this house, that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

¹⁷ And as for you, if you walk before me as David your father walked, doing all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my judgments, ¹⁸ then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, "You will never fail to have a man to rule over Israel."

¹⁹ But if you turn away and abandon my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, ²⁰ then I will uproot you from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a taunt and an object of ridicule among all peoples. ²¹ And this house, now so exalted—everyone who passes by it will be appalled and say, "Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this house?" ²² And they will answer, "Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them. That is why he has brought all this disaster on them."