1When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven. It burned up the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the house.
2The priests could not go into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD's house.
3All the people of Israel saw the fire come down, and they saw the glory of the LORD on the house. They bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement. They worshipped and praised the LORD, saying, "For he is good, for his mercy lasts for ever."
4Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.
5King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.
6The priests stood at their work. The Levites stood with the musical instruments of the LORD, which King David had made to praise the LORD, saying, "For his mercy lasts for ever." They played as David had praised the LORD through them. The priests blew trumpets in front of them, and all Israel stood.
7Solomon also set apart the middle of the court in front of the house of the LORD. There he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar he had made was not big enough to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat.
8At that same time Solomon kept the feast for seven days, and all Israel with him. It was a very great gathering, from the entrance of Hamath to the river of Egypt.
9On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly. They had kept the dedication of the altar for seven days, and the feast for seven days.
10On the twenty-third day of the seventh month he sent the people away to their tents. They were glad and happy in heart because of the goodness the LORD had shown to David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.
11So Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king's house. Everything that came into Solomon's heart to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house, he carried out successfully.
12The LORD appeared to Solomon by night and said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice."
13"If I shut up heaven so that there is no rain, or if I command the locusts to eat up the land, or if I send a plague among my people,"
14"if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
15"Now my eyes will be open, and my ears will listen to the prayer that is made in this place."
16"For now I have chosen this house and made it holy, so that my name may be there for ever. My eyes and my heart will be there always."
17"And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, and do everything I have commanded you, and keep my rules and my laws,"
18"then I will make the throne of your kingdom firm. This is the covenant I made with David your father, when I said, 'You will never fail to have a man to rule in Israel.'"
19"But if you turn away and leave my rules and my commands, which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them,"
20"then I will pull them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them. And this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will throw out of my sight. I will make it a saying and a joke among all nations."
21"And this house, which is so high, will shock everyone who passes by it. He will say, 'Why has the LORD done this to this land and to this house?'"
22"And the answer will be, 'Because they left the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and took hold of other gods, and worshipped them and served them. That is why he has brought all this evil on them.'"