Study Desk

So I have decided to build a temple to honor the Lord my God, as the Lord instructed my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will put on your throne in your place, is the one who will build a temple to honor me.'

He said, "The Lord God of Israel is worthy of praise because he has fulfilled what he promised my father David.

Now my father David had a strong desire to build a temple to honor the Lord God of Israel.

The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have taken my father David's place and have occupied the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised. I have built this temple for the honor of the Lord God of Israel

He prayed: "O Lord , God of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth below! You maintain covenantal loyalty to your servants who obey you with sincerity.

Now, O Lord , God of Israel, keep the promise you made to your servant, my father David, when you said, ‘You will never fail to have a successor ruling before me on the throne of Israel, provided that your descendants watch their step and serve me as you have done.'

Now, O God of Israel, may the promise you made to your servant, my father David, be realized.

"God does not really live on the earth! Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!

But respond favorably to your servant's prayer and his request for help, O Lord my God. Answer the desperate prayer your servant is presenting to you today.

May the Lord our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors. May he not abandon us or leave us.

May the Lord our God be constantly aware of these requests of mine I have presented to him, so that he might vindicate his servant and his people Israel as the need arises.

Then all the nations of the earth will recognize that the Lord is the only genuine God.

May you demonstrate wholehearted devotion to the Lord our God by following his rules and obeying his commandments, as you are presently doing."

At that time Solomon and all Israel with him celebrated a festival before the Lord our God for two entire weeks. This great assembly included people from all over the land, from Lebo Hamath in the north to the Stream of Egypt in the south.

On the fifteenth day after the festival started, he dismissed the people. They asked God to empower the king and then went to their homes, happy and content because of all the good the Lord had done for his servant David and his people Israel.

Others will then answer, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who led their ancestors out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. That is why the Lord has brought all this disaster down on them.'"

May the Lord your God be praised because he favored you by placing you on the throne of Israel! Because of the Lord 's eternal love for Israel, he made you king so you could make just and right decisions."

Everyone in the world wanted to visit Solomon to see him display his God-given wisdom.

When Solomon became old, his wives shifted his allegiance to other gods; he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been.

Solomon worshiped the Sidonian goddess Astarte and the detestable Ammonite god Milcom.