2 ChroniclesChapter 7
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1When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven. It burned up the burnt offering and the sacrifices. And the glory of the LORD filled the temple. 2The priests could not go into the LORD's house, because the glory of the LORD had filled it. 3All the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple. They bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground. They worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD. They said, "For he is good; his faithful love lasts forever." 4Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD. 5King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated God's house. 6The priests stood at their posts. The Levites stood there too with the LORD's musical instruments. King David had made these to give thanks to the LORD. David had used them to praise him, saying, "His faithful love lasts forever." Across from the Levites, the priests blew trumpets. And all the Israelites were standing. 7Solomon set apart as holy the middle of the courtyard in front of the LORD's house. There he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings. He did this because the bronze altar he had made could not hold all these offerings. 8So at that time Solomon kept the feast for seven days. All Israel was with him. It was a very large crowd from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt. 9On the eighth day they held a holy gathering. For they had kept the dedication of the altar for seven days and the feast for seven more days. 10On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, Solomon sent the people home. They were joyful and glad in their hearts. They were happy for the good things the LORD had done for David, for Solomon, and for his people Israel. 11Solomon finished the LORD's house and the royal palace. He did well in all he had planned in his heart to do for the LORD's house and for his own palace. 12Then the LORD appeared to him at night. He said to him, "I have heard your prayer. I have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command locusts to eat up the land, or if I send a plague among my people, 14and 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 heal their land. 15Now my eyes will be open and my ears will listen to the prayers prayed in this place. 16I have now chosen this temple and made it holy, so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. 17As for you, if you walk with me as your father David did, and do all I have commanded you, and if you keep my laws and rules, 18then I will make your royal throne secure. This is what I promised in my covenant with your father David when I said, 'You will always have a man to rule over Israel.' 19But if you turn away and leave the laws and commands I have given you, and if you go off to serve and worship other gods, 20then I will pull Israel up by the roots from the land I gave them. I will throw out of my sight this temple I made holy for my Name. I will make it something all the peoples mock and laugh at. 21This temple will become a pile of ruins. Everyone who passes by will be shocked. They will say, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?' 22Others will answer, 'It is because they left the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They held on to other gods and worshiped and served them. That is why he has brought all this disaster on them.'"