2 Chronicles 7

³⁸Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked up the water in the trench.

²⁶And there he built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called upon the Lord, who answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

²³Moses and Aaron then entered the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.

²⁴Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.

⁵Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

²⁴Then you may call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The God who answers by fire, He is God.” And all the people answered, “What you say is good.”

⁴Then the man brought me to the front of the temple by way of the north gate. I looked and saw the glory of the Lord filling His temple, and I fell facedown.

⁸And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

¹⁴so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

¹⁷And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop in the eyes of the Israelites.

⁵Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”

¹³The trumpeters and singers joined together to praise and thank the Lord with one voice. They lifted up their voices, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments, in praise to the Lord: “For He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.” And the temple, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud

²¹Then Jehoshaphat consulted with the people and appointed those who would sing to the Lord and praise the splendor of His holiness. As they went out before the army, they were singing: “Give thanks to the Lord, for His loving devotion endures forever.”

²⁴But because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood.

²⁵Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them.

⁵⁰His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.

⁷I will make known the Lord’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the Lord has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion.

¹¹And they sang responsively with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord: “For He is good; for His loving devotion to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord had been laid.

⁶²Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord.

⁶³And Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the Lord.

²²At that time the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,

¹⁷And it shall be the prince’s part to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings for the feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—for all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel. He will provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings to make atonement for the house of Israel.

²⁴For Hezekiah king of Judah contributed a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep for the assembly, and the officials contributed a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep for the assembly, and a great number of priests consecrated themselves.

⁶²Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord.

⁶³And Solomon offered as peace offerings to the Lord 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the house of the Lord.

⁷Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

⁶There, before the ark, King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

¹²all the Levitical singers—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps, and lyres, accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets.

¹⁶David also told the leaders of the Levites to appoint their relatives as singers to lift up their voices with joy, accompanied by musical instruments—harps, lyres, and cymbals.

¹⁷So the Levites appointed Heman son of Joel; from his brothers, Asaph son of Berechiah; from their brothers the Merarites, Ethan son of Kushaiah;

³When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord: “For He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.”

¹Additionally, David and the commanders of the army set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun to prophesy with the accompaniment of lyres, harps, and cymbals. The following is the list of the men who performed this service:

²From the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and Asarelah. These sons of Asaph were under the direction of Asaph, who prophesied under the direction of the king.

⁴David appointed some of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, to celebrate, to give thanks, and to praise the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁵Asaph was the chief, Zechariah was second, then Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-edom, and Jeiel. They were to play the harps and lyres, while Asaph sounded the cymbals

¹Hallelujah! Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

¹⁰We have an altar from which those who serve at the tabernacle have no right to eat.

¹¹Although the high priest brings the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, the bodies are burned outside the camp.

⁶⁴On that same day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of the Lord, and there he offered the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, since the bronze altar before the Lord was too small to contain all these offerings.

⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the Lord our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

¹He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.

¹⁴Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people multiplied their unfaithful deeds, following all the abominations of the nations, and they defiled the house of the Lord, which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.

³⁷“Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to remove the censers from the flames and to scatter the coals far away, because the censers are holy.

³⁸As for the censers of those who sinned at the cost of their own lives, hammer them into sheets to overlay the altar, for these were presented before the Lord, and so have become holy. They will serve as a sign to the Israelites.”

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the Lord our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

²¹And Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These kingdoms offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

²²Solomon’s provisions for a single day were thirty cors of fine flour, sixty cors of meal,

¹⁴For behold, I will raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord, the God of Hosts, “and they will oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

¹³You are to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.

¹⁴And you shall rejoice in your feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.

³from the Shihor east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north (considered to be Canaanite territory)—that of the five Philistine rulers of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, as well as that of the Avvites;

⁴to the south, all the land of the Canaanites, from Mearah of the Sidonians to Aphek, as far as the border of the Amorites;

³⁶For seven days you are to present a food offering to the Lord. On the eighth day you are to hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you must not do any regular work.

²³The whole assembly agreed to observe seven more days, so they observed seven days with joy.

¹⁸Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. The Israelites kept the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly, according to the ordinance.

⁶⁵So at that time Solomon and all Israel with him—a great assembly of people from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt—kept the feast before the Lord our God for seven days and seven more days—fourteen days in all.

⁸For six days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day you shall hold a solemn assembly to the Lord your God, and you must not do any work.

¹⁴Consecrate a fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

⁶⁶On the fifteenth day Solomon sent the people away. So they blessed the king and went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things that the Lord had done for His servant David and for His people Israel.

²Serve the Lord with gladness; come into His presence with joyful songs.

¹⁰Then Nehemiah told them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send out portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

¹⁸Instead, you must eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates. Rejoice before the Lord your God in all you do,

¹²And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.

³Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

¹Now when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all that he had desired to do,

²the Lord appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

¹⁰Anything my eyes desired, I did not deny myself. I refused my heart no pleasure. For my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

¹¹Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

¹Now Solomon purposed to build a house for the Name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

⁴I expanded my pursuits. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself.

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.

⁷That night God appeared to Solomon and said, “Ask, and I will give it to you!”

¹⁶For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

²the Lord appeared to him a second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon.

¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

¹⁵And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.

¹³But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.

²⁶When the skies are shut and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and they turn from their sins because You have afflicted them,

²⁷then may You hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, so that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk. May You send rain on the land that You gave Your people as an inheritance.

¹⁷or the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you. He will shut the heavens so that there will be no rain, nor will the land yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is giving you.

⁶These witnesses have power to shut the sky so that no rain will fall during the days of their prophecy, and power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they wish.

⁷To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the One who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.

¹³So Gad went and said to David, “Do you choose to endure three years of famine in your land, three months of fleeing the pursuit of your enemies, or three days of plague upon your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should reply to Him who sent me.”

¹⁴David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

¹⁴What He tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man He imprisons cannot be released.

⁴⁰Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the Lord.

⁴¹Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:

⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

⁷Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

⁹Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

¹³He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.

³⁷and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’

³⁸and when they return to You with all their heart and soul in the land of the enemies who took them captive, and when they pray in the direction of the land that You gave to their fathers, the city You have chosen, and the house I have built for Your Name,

²⁹But if from there you will seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

³⁰When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.

¹²For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

⁴⁰Now, my God, may Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.

⁶let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to hear the prayer that I, Your servant, now pray before You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins that we Israelites have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned.

²⁰May Your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your Name, so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

¹²It is a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning to the end of the year.

²O You who listen to prayer, all people will come to You.

¹⁵Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

¹²the Lord appeared to him at night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.

⁵‘Since the day I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house so that My Name would be there, nor have I chosen anyone to be ruler over My people Israel.

⁶But now I have chosen Jerusalem for My Name to be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’

³And the Lord said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

²⁰May Your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your Name, so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form.

²⁷And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

⁴⁰Keep His statutes and commandments, which I am giving you today, so that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

³⁸If you listen to all that I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight in order to keep My statutes and commandments as My servant David did, then I will be with you. I will build you a lasting dynasty just as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you.

⁷“This is what the Lord of Hosts says: ‘If you walk in My ways and keep My instructions, then you will govern My house and will also have charge of My courts; and I will give you a place among these who are standing here.

⁹As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

⁴⁵that they might keep His statutes and obey His laws. Hallelujah!

¹⁶Therefore now, O Lord, God of Israel, keep for Your servant, my father David, what You promised when You said: ‘You will never fail to have a man to sit before Me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants guard their way to walk in My law as you have walked before Me.’

²⁰“This is what the Lord says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time,

²¹then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant and with My ministers the Levites who are priests, so that David will not have a son to reign on his throne.

¹³He will build a house for My Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

¹⁴I will be his Father, and he will be My son. When he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.

⁵then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.’

²⁸I will forever preserve My loving devotion for him, and My covenant with him will stand fast.

²⁹I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.

²⁵This is what the Lord says: If I have not established My covenant with the day and the night and the fixed order of heaven and earth,

²⁶then I would also reject the descendants of Jacob and of My servant David, so as not to take from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore them from captivity and will have compassion on them.”

¹⁴If, however, you fail to obey Me and to carry out all these commandments,

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey the Lord your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

³³But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.

³⁴Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths.

⁶But if indeed you or your sons turn away from following Me and do not keep the commandments and statutes I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods,

⁷then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.

³⁶The Lord will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone.

³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

²⁵But if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away.”

²⁰So the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel. He afflicted them and delivered them into the hands of plunderers, until He had banished them from His presence.

³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

¹⁵For the Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that He gave their fathers, and He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking the Lord to anger.

⁴Thus Jeremiah was to say to Baruch: “This is what the Lord says: Throughout the land I will demolish what I have built and uproot what I have planted.

²⁸The Lord uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

⁹I will make them a horror and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing wherever I have banished them.

⁸And many nations will pass by this city and ask one another, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?’

⁹Then people will reply, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.’”

¹⁰When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’

¹¹Then you are to answer them: ‘It is because your fathers have forsaken Me, declares the Lord, and followed other gods, and served and worshiped them. They abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction.

⁸I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

²⁴So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

²⁵And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁹And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”

²²And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.

¹²You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

¹³But this was for the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous in her midst.

¹⁴They wandered blind in the streets, defiled by this blood, so that no one dared to touch their garments.

²³They will bring you consolation when you see their conduct and actions, and you will know that it was not without cause that I have done all these things within it,’ declares the Lord God.”

¹⁶All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

¹⁷The Lord has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

¹²Thus they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger,

¹³for they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

¹⁶I will pronounce My judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me, and they have burned incense to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.