The LORD’s Response to Solomon

(1 Kings 9:1–9)

11 When Solomon had finished the house of the LORD and the royal palace, successfully carrying out all that was in his heart to do for the house of the LORD and for his own palace, 12 the LORD appeared to him 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 close the sky so 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 if 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, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.

17 And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances, 18 then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with your father David when I said, ‘You will never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.’

19 But if you turn away and forsake the statutes and commandments I have set before you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, 20 then I will uproot Israel from the soil I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. I will make it an object of scorn and ridicule among all the peoples.

21 And when this temple has become a heap of rubble,[fn] all who pass by it will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 22 And others will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—because of this, He has brought all this disaster upon them.’ ”