Study Desk

and said: "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying,

Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

Now the LORD has fulfilled the word that He spoke. I have succeeded my father David, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised. I have built the house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

and said: "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth below, keeping Your covenant of loving devotion with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts.

Therefore 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 before Me as you have done.'

And now, O God of Israel, please confirm what You promised to Your servant, my father David.

But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built.

Yet regard the prayer and plea of Your servant, O LORD my God, so that You may hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is praying before You today.

For You, O Lord GOD, as Your inheritance, have set them apart from all the peoples of the earth, as You spoke through Your servant Moses when You brought our fathers out of Egypt."

May the LORD our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He never leave us or forsake us.

And may these words with which I have made my petition before the LORD be near to the LORD our God day and night, so that He may uphold the cause of His servant and of His people Israel as each day requires,

so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God. There is no other!

So let your heart be fully devoted to the LORD our God, as it is this day, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments."

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

And others will answer, 'Because they have forsaken the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them. Because of this, the LORD has brought all this disaster upon them.'"

Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you to set you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD's eternal love for Israel, He has made you king to carry out justice and righteousness."

The whole world sought an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.

Now the LORD grew angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

And God raised up against Solomon another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliada, who had fled from his master, Hadadezer king of Zobah