12 Then he stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. 13 For Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the courtyard; and he stood on it, knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven. 14 He said, “Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like You in heaven or on earth, keeping Your covenant and Your faithfulness to Your servants who walk before You with all their heart; 15 You who have kept with Your servant, my father David, that which You promised him; You have spoken with Your mouth and have fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day. 16 Now then, Lord, God of Israel, keep to Your servant David, my father, that which You promised him, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your sons pay attention to their way, to walk in My Law as you have walked before Me.’ 17 Now then, Lord, God of Israel, let Your word be confirmed which You have spoken to Your servant David.
18 “But will God really dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built! 19 Nevertheless, turn Your attention to the prayer of Your servant and to his plea, Lord, my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You; 20 that Your eye will be open toward this house day and night, toward the place of which You have said that You would put Your name there, to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place. 21 Listen to the pleadings of Your servant and of Your people Israel when they pray toward this place; hear from Your dwelling place, from heaven; hear and forgive.
22 “If someone sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath, and he comes and takes an oath before Your altar in this house, 23 then hear from heaven and take action and judge Your servants, punishing the wicked by bringing his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous by repaying him according to his righteousness.
24 “If Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and they return to You and praise Your name, and pray and plead before You in this house, 25 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You have given to them and to their fathers.
26 “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and praise Your name, and turn from their sin when You afflict them, 27 then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants and Your people Israel; indeed, teach them the good way in which they are to walk. And provide rain on Your land, which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.
28 “If there is a famine in the land, if there is a plague, if there is blight or mildew, if there is locust or grasshopper, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is, 29 whatever prayer or plea is made by anyone or by all Your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own pain, and spreading his hands toward this house, 30 then hear from heaven, Your dwelling place, and forgive, and render to each according to all his ways, whose heart You know—for You alone know the hearts of the sons of mankind— 31 so that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You have given to our fathers.
32 “Also concerning the foreigner who is not from Your people Israel, when he comes from a far country on account of Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, when they come and pray toward this house, 33 then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, so that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name, and fear You as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by Your name.
34 “When Your people go out to battle against their enemies, by whatever way You send them, and they pray to You toward this city which You have chosen and the house which I have built for Your name, 35 then hear from heaven their prayer and their pleading, and maintain their cause.
36 “When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You are angry with them and turn them over to an enemy, so that they take them away captive to a land far off or near, 37 if they take it to heart in the land where they are taken captive, and repent and plead to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong and have acted wickedly’; 38 if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been taken captive, and pray toward their land which You have given to their fathers and the city which You have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name, 39 then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, their prayer and pleadings, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.
40 “Now, my God, please, let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.
41 “Now then arise, Lord God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your might; let Your priests, Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let Your godly ones rejoice in what is good.
42 “Lord God, do not turn away the face of Your anointed; remember Your faithfulness to Your servant David.”
1 Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 2 And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. 3 All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord, saying, “Certainly He is good, certainly His faithfulness is everlasting.”
4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. 5 King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 6 The priests stood at their posts, and the Levites also, with the musical instruments for the Lord, which King David had made for giving praise to the Lord—“for His faithfulness is everlasting”—whenever David gave praise through their ministry; the priests on the other side blew trumpets and all Israel was standing.
7 Then Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was before the house of the Lord, for he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings there, because the bronze altar which Solomon had made was not able to contain the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat.
8 So Solomon held the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great assembly that came from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt. 9 And on the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, because they held the dedication of the altar for seven days, and the feast for seven days. 10 Then on the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people to their tents, rejoicing and happy in heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David, to Solomon, and to His people Israel.
11 So Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s palace, and successfully completed everything that he had planned on doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace.
12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people, 14 and My people 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 will 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 so that My name may be there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there always. 17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, to do according to everything that I have commanded you, and keep My statutes and My ordinances, 18 then I will establish your royal throne as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel.’
19 “But if you turn away and abandon My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you, and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight; and I will make it a proverb and an object of scorn among all peoples. 21 As for this house, which was exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done these things to this land and to this house?’ 22 And they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them from the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods, and worshiped and served them; therefore He has brought all this adversity on them.’”
1 Now it came about at the end of the twenty years in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house, 2 that he built the cities which Huram had given him, and settled the sons of Israel there.
3 Then Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and captured it. 4 He built Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage cities which he had built in Hamath. 5 He also built upper Beth-horon and lower Beth-horon, which were fortified cities with walls, gates, and bars; 6 and Baalath and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots and cities for his horsemen, and everything that it pleased Solomon to build in Jerusalem, Lebanon, and all the land under his rule.
7 All of the people who were left of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel, 8 that is, from their descendants who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel had not destroyed, Solomon raised them as forced laborers to this day. 9 But Solomon did not make slaves from the sons of Israel for his work; for they were men of war, his chief captains and commanders of his chariots and his horsemen. 10 These were the chief officers of King Solomon, 250 who ruled over the people.
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. 17 But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
1 “I love You, Lord, my strength.”
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my savior,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.
4 The ropes of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of destruction terrified me.
5 The ropes of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked;
And the foundations of the mountains were trembling
And were shaken, because He was angry.
8 Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
And fire from His mouth was devouring;
Coals burned from it.
9 He also bowed the heavens down low, and came down
With thick darkness under His feet.
10 He rode on a cherub and flew;
And He sped on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him,
Darkness of waters, thick clouds.
12 From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
And the Most High uttered His voice,
Hailstones and coals of fire.
14 He sent out His arrows, and scattered them,
And lightning flashes in abundance, and routed them.
15 Then the channels of water appeared,
And the foundations of the world were exposed
By Your rebuke, Lord,
At the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
24 The lazy one buries his hand in the dish,
But will not even bring it back to his mouth.
25 Strike a scoffer and the naive may become clever,
But rebuke one who has understanding, and he will gain knowledge.
