II Chronicles 6-10

II Chronicles 6

¹Then Solomon said, O Lord, to the sun you have given the heaven for a living-place, but your living-place was not seen by men,

²So I have made for you a living-place, a house in which you may be for ever present.

³Then, turning his face about, the king gave a blessing to all the men of Israel; and they were all on their feet together.

⁴And he said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who himself gave his word to my father David, and with his strong hand has made his word come true, saying,

⁵From the day when I took my people out of the land of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; and I took no man to be a ruler over my people Israel;

⁶But now I have made selection of Jerusalem, that my name might be there, and of David, to be over my people Israel.

⁷Now it was in the heart of my father David to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁸But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name:

⁹But you yourself will not be the builder of the house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

¹⁰And the Lord has kept his word; for I have taken my father David's place on the seat of the kingdom of Israel, as the Lord gave his word; and I have made the house for the name of the Lord the God of Israel.

¹¹And there I have put the ark, in which is the agreement of the Lord, which he made with the people of Israel.

¹²Then he took his place in front of the altar of the Lord, all the men of Israel being present,

¹³(For Solomon had made a brass stage, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had put it in the middle of the open space; on this he took his place and went down on his knees before all the meeting of Israel, stretching out his hands to heaven.)

¹⁴And he said, O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth; keeping faith and mercy unchanging for your servants, while they go in your ways with all their hearts;

¹⁵For you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day.

¹⁶So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, let your word to your servant David, my father, come true, when you said, You will never be without a man to take his place before me on the seat of the kingdom of Israel; if only your children give attention to their ways, walking in my law, as you have done before me.

¹⁷So now, O Lord, the God of Israel, make your word come true which you said to your servant David.

¹⁸But is it truly possible that God may be housed with men on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place: how much less this house which I have made:

¹⁹Still, let your heart be turned to the prayer of your servant and to his prayer for grace, O Lord my God, and give ear to the cry and the prayer which your servant makes before you;

²⁰That your eyes may be open to this house day and night, to this place of which you have said that you would put your name there; to give ear to the prayer which your servant may make, turning to this place.

²¹And give ear to the prayers of your servant and of your people Israel, when they make their prayers, turning to this place; give ear from heaven your living-place; and hearing have mercy.

²²If a man does wrong to his neighbour and has to take an oath, and comes before your altar to take his oath in this house:

²³Then let your ear be open in heaven, and be the judge of your servants, giving punishment to the wrongdoer, so that his sin may come on his head; and, by your decision, keeping from evil him who has done no wrong.

²⁴And if your people Israel are overcome in war, because of their sin against you; if they are turned to you again, honouring your name, making prayers and requesting your grace in this house:

²⁵Then give ear from heaven, and let the sin of your people Israel have forgiveness, and take them back again to the land which you gave to them and to their fathers.

²⁶When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because of their sin against you: if they make prayers with their faces turned to this place, honouring your name and turning away from their sin when you send trouble on them:

²⁷Then give ear from heaven, so that the sin of your servants and the sin of your people Israel may have forgiveness, when you make clear to them the good way in which they are to go; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for their heritage.

²⁸If there is no food in the land, if there is disease, if the fruits of the earth are damaged by heat or water, locust or worm; if their towns are shut in by their attackers: whatever trouble or whatever disease there may be:

²⁹Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

³⁰Then give ear from heaven your living-place, answering with forgiveness, and give to every man, whose secret heart is open to you, the reward of all his ways; (for you, and you only, have knowledge of the hearts of the children of men;)

³¹So that they may give you worship, walking in your ways, as long as they are living in the land which you gave to our fathers.

³²And as for the man from a strange land, who is not of your people Israel but comes from a far country because of the glory of your name and your strong hand and your outstretched arm; when he comes to make his prayer, turning to this house:

³³Then give ear from heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and may see that this house which I have made is truly named by your name.

³⁴If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayers to you turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have put up for your name:

³⁵Then give ear from heaven to their prayer and their cry for grace, and see right done to them.

³⁶If they do wrong against you, (for no man is without sin,) and you are angry with them, and give them up into the power of those who are fighting against them, so that they take them away prisoners to a land far off or near;

³⁷And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, turning again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil;

³⁸If with all their heart and soul they are turned again to you, in the land where they are prisoners, the land where they have been taken, and make their prayers, turning their eyes to their land which you gave to their fathers, and to the town which you took for yourself, and the house which I have made for your name:

³⁹Then give ear from heaven your living-place to their prayer and their cry, and see right done to them, answering with forgiveness your people who have done wrong against you.

⁴⁰Now, O my God, may your eyes be open and your ears awake to the prayers made in this place.

⁴¹Up! now, O Lord God, come back to your resting-place, you and the ark of your strength: let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints be glad in what is good.

⁴²O Lord God, let him whom you have taken for yourself never be given up by you: keep in mind your mercies to David your servant.

II Chronicles 7

¹Now when Solomon's prayers were ended, fire came down from heaven, burning up all the offerings; and the house was full of the glory of the Lord.

²And the priests were not able to go into the house of the Lord, for the Lord's house was full of the glory of the Lord.

³And all the children of Israel were looking on when the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord was on the house; and they went down on their knees, with their faces to the earth, worshipping and praising the Lord, and saying, He is good; for his mercy is unchanging for ever.

⁴Then the king and all the people made offerings before the Lord.

⁵King Solomon made an offering of twenty-two thousand oxen, and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people kept the feast of the opening of the house of God.

⁶And the priests were in their places, and the Levites with their instruments of music for the Lord's song, which David the king had made for the praise of the Lord whose mercy is unchanging for ever, when David gave praise by their hand; and the priests were sounding horns before them; and all Israel were on their feet.

⁷Then Solomon made holy the middle of the open square in front of the house of the Lord, offering the burned offerings there, and the fat of the peace-offerings; for there was not room on the brass altar which Solomon had made for all the burned offerings and the meal offerings and the fat.

⁸So Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, for the people had come together from the way into Hamath and from as far as the river of Egypt.

⁹And on the eighth day they had a holy meeting; the offerings for making the altar holy went on for seven days, and the feast for seven days.

¹⁰And on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people away to their tents, full of joy and glad in their hearts, because of all the good which the Lord had done to David and to Solomon and to Israel his people.

¹¹So Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house; and everything which it was in his mind to make in the house of the Lord and for himself had been well done.

¹²Now the Lord came to Solomon in a vision by night, and said to him, I have given ear to your prayer, and have taken this place for myself as a house where offerings are to be made.

¹³If, at my word, heaven is shut up, so that there is no rain, or if I send locusts on the land for its destruction, or if I send disease on my people;

¹⁴If my people, on whom my name is named, make themselves low and come to me in prayer, searching for me and turning from their evil ways; then I will give ear from heaven, overlooking their sin, and will give life again to their land.

¹⁵Now my eyes will be open and my ears awake to the prayers made in this place.

¹⁶For I have taken this house for myself and made it holy, so that my name may be there for ever; and my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

¹⁷And as for you, if you will go on your way before me as David your father did, doing whatever I have given you orders to do and keeping my laws and my decisions:

¹⁸Then I will make strong the seat of your kingdom, as I gave my word to David your father, saying, You will never be without a man to be ruler in Israel.

¹⁹But if you are turned away from me, and do not keep my orders and my laws which I have put before you, but go and make yourselves servants to other gods, giving them worship:

²⁰Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

²¹And this house will become a mass of broken walls, and everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land and to this house?

²²And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord, the God of their fathers, who took them out of the land of Egypt, and took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why he has sent all this evil on them.

II Chronicles 8

¹Now at the end of twenty years, in which time Solomon had put up the house of the Lord and a house for himself,

²He took in hand the building up of the towns which Huram had given him, causing the children of Israel to make living-places for themselves there.

³And Solomon went to Hamath-zobah and overcame it.

⁴And he put up the buildings of Tadmor in the waste land, and of all the store-towns in Hamath;

⁵And of Beth-horon the higher and the lower, walled towns with walls and doorways and locks;

⁶And of Baalath, and all the store-towns which Solomon had, and the towns where he kept his war-carriages and his horse men, and everything which it was his pleasure to put up in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land under his rule.

⁷As for all the rest of the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel:

⁸Their men who were still living in the land, and whom the children of Israel had not put an end to, these Solomon put to forced work, as is done to this day;

⁹But Solomon did not make use of the children of Israel as servants for his work; they were men of war, his chiefs and his captains, and captains of his war-carriages and his horsemen.

¹⁰Now these were the chief men in authority whom King Solomon had: two hundred and fifty of them, in authority over the people.

¹¹Then Solomon made Pharaoh's daughter come up from the town of David to the house which he had made for her; for he said, I will not have my wife living in the house of David, king of Israel, because those places where the ark of the Lord has come are holy.

¹²Then Solomon made burned offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had put up in front of the covered way,

¹³Offering every day what had been ordered by Moses, on the Sabbaths and at the new moon and at the regular feasts three times a year, that is at the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tents.

¹⁴And he gave the divisions of the priests their places for their work, as ordered by his father David, and to the Levites he gave their work of praise and waiting on the priests, to do what was needed day by day; and he gave the door-keepers their places in turn at every door; for so David, the man of God, had given orders.

¹⁵All the orders given by the king to the priests and Levites, in connection with any business or stores, were done with care.

¹⁶And all the work of Solomon was complete, from the day when he put the base of the Lord's house in position, till Solomon had come to the end of building the Lord's house.

¹⁷Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth by the sea in the land of Edom.

¹⁸And Huram sent him, by his servants, ships and experienced seamen, who went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir and came back with four hundred and fifty talents of gold, which they took to King Solomon.

II Chronicles 9

¹Now the queen of Sheba, hearing great things of Solomon, came to Jerusalem to put his wisdom to the test with hard questions; and with her came a very great train, and camels weighted down with spices, and great stores of gold and jewels: and when she came to Solomon she had talk with him of everything in her mind.

²And Solomon gave her answers to all her questions; there was no secret which he did not make clear to her.

³And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house which he had made,

⁴And the food at his table, and all his servants seated there, and those who were waiting on him in their places, and their robes, and his wine-servants and their robes, and the burned offerings which he made in the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her.

⁵And she said to the king, The account which was given to me in my country of your acts and your wisdom was true.

⁶But I had no faith in what was said about you, till I came and saw for myself; and truly, word was not given me of half your great wisdom; you are much greater than they said.

⁷Happy are your wives and happy these your servants whose place is ever before you, hearing your words of wisdom.

⁸Praise be to the Lord your God whose pleasure it was to put you on the seat of his kingdom to be king for the Lord your God: because, in his love for Israel, it was the purpose of your God to make them strong for ever, he made you king over them, to be their judge in righteousness.

⁹And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and jewels: never had such spices been seen as the queen of Sheba gave to Solomon.

¹⁰And the servants of Huram and the servants of Solomon, in addition to gold from Ophir, came back with sandal-wood and jewels.

¹¹And with the sandal-wood the king made steps for the house of the Lord and for the king's house, and instruments of music for the makers of melody; never before had such been seen in the land of Judah.

¹²And King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all her desire, whatever she made request for, in addition to what she had taken to the king. So she went back to her country with her servants.

¹³Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents;

¹⁴And in addition to what he got from traders of different sorts, all the kings of Arabia and the rulers of the country gave gold and silver to Solomon.

¹⁵And King Solomon made two hundred body-covers of hammered gold, every one having six hundred shekels of gold in it.

¹⁶And he made three hundred smaller body-covers of hammered gold, using three hundred shekels of gold for every cover, and the king put them in the house of the Woods of Lebanon.

¹⁷Then the king made a great ivory seat, plated with the best gold.

¹⁸There were six steps up to it, and a foot-rest of gold fixed to it, and arms on the two sides of the seat, with two lions at the side of the arms.

¹⁹And twelve lions were placed on one side and on the other side on the six steps: there was nothing like it in any kingdom.

²⁰All King Solomon's drinking-vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the Woods of Lebanon were of the best gold: no one gave a thought to silver in the days of Solomon.

²¹For the king had Tarshish-ships sailing with the servants of Huram: once every three years the Tarshish-ships came back with gold and silver, ivory and monkeys and peacocks.

²²And King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in wealth and in wisdom.

²³And all the kings of the earth came to see Solomon and to give ear to his wisdom, which God had put into his heart.

²⁴And everyone took with him an offering, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, and robes, and coats of metal, and spices, and horses and beasts for transport, regularly year by year.

²⁵Solomon had four thousand buildings for his horses and his war-carriages, and twelve thousand horsemen whom he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king in Jerusalem.

²⁶And he was ruler over all the kings from the River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the limit of Egypt.

²⁷The king made silver as common as stones in Jerusalem and cedars like the sycamore-trees of the lowlands in number.

²⁸They got horses for Solomon from Egypt and from every land.

²⁹Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not recorded in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the words of Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh, and in the visions of Iddo the seer about Jeroboam, the son of Nebat?

³⁰Solomon was king over Israel in Jerusalem for forty years.

³¹And Solomon went to rest with his fathers, and was put into the earth in the town of David his father; and Rehoboam his son became king in his place.

II Chronicles 10

¹And Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all Israel had come together to make him king.

²And when Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, had news of it, (for he was in Egypt where he had gone in flight from King Solomon,) he came back from Egypt.

³And they sent for him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came to Rehoboam and said,

⁴Your father put a hard yoke on us: if you will make the conditions under which your father kept us down less cruel, and the weight of the yoke he put on us less hard, then we will be your servants.

⁵And he said to them, Come to me again after three days. So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took the opinion of the old men who had been with Solomon his father when he was living, and said, In your opinion, what answer am I to give to this people?

⁷And they said to him, If you are kind to this people, pleasing them and saying good words to them, then they will be your servants for ever.

⁸But he gave no attention to the opinion of the old men, but went to the young men of his generation who were waiting before him.

⁹And he said to them, What is your opinion? What answer are we to give to this people who have said to me, Make less the weight of the yoke which your father put on us?

¹⁰And the young men of his generation said to him, This is the answer to give to the people who came to you saying, Your father put a hard yoke on us, but will you make it less; say to them, My little finger is thicker than my father's body;

¹¹If my father put a hard yoke on you, I will make it harder: my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give you blows with snakes.

¹²So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had given orders, saying, Come to me again on the third day.

¹³And the king gave them a rough answer. So King Rehoboam gave no attention to the suggestion of the old men,

¹⁴But gave them the answer put forward by the young men, saying, My father made your yoke hard, but I will make it harder; my father gave you punishment with whips, but I will give it with snakes.

¹⁵So the king did not give ear to the people; for this came about by the purpose of God, so that the Lord might give effect to his word which he had said by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.

¹⁶And when all Israel saw that the king would give no attention to them, the people in answer said to the king, What part have we in David? what is our heritage in the son of Jesse? every man to your tents, O Israel; now see to your house, David. So all Israel went to their tents.

¹⁷But Rehoboam was still king over those of the children of Israel who were living in the towns of Judah.

¹⁸Then Rehoboam sent Adoniram, the overseer of the forced work; and he was stoned to death by all Israel. And King Rehoboam went quickly and got into his carriage to go in flight to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel was turned away from the family of David to this day.