2 Chronicles 7

God Shows Up Big & Speaks to Solomon

1 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from the sky and burned up the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.

2 The priests could not even go into the Lord’s temple, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s temple.

3 When all the Israelites saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they dropped to their knees on the pavement with their faces to the ground, bowing down and praising the Lord, saying, “He is good; His loyal love endures forever!”

4 Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the Lord.

5 King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated God’s temple.

6 The priests stood in their assigned spots, and the Levites also, with the Lord’s instruments for music, which King David had made for praising the Lord, saying, “His loyal love endures forever!”, when David praised by their hand. The priests blew trumpets opposite them, and all Israel stood.

7 Solomon made the middle part of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s temple holy, because he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings there, because the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold all the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and the fat.

8 At that time, Solomon celebrated the festival for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very large assembly, from Lebo Hamath all the way to the Wadi of Egypt.

9 On the eighth day, they held a solemn assembly, because they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days.

10 On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people home to their tents, hyped and with good vibes in their hearts for the goodness the Lord had shown David, Solomon, and His people Israel.

God Speaks to Solomon Again

11 So Solomon finished the Lord’s temple and the king’s palace. Everything Solomon had planned to do in the Lord’s temple and in his own palace, he pulled it off successfully.

12 Then the Lord showed up to Solomon by night and told him, “I heard your prayer, and I chose this spot for Myself as a temple for sacrifices.”

13 “If I lock up the sky so there is no rain, or if I send 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, humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

15 “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer made in this place.”

16 “For now I chose and made this temple holy, so My Name can be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there always.”

17 “And you, if you walk before Me as your daddy David walked, doing everything I commanded you, and keeping My rules and My laws,”

18 “Then I will set up your royal throne, just as I made a covenant with your daddy David, saying, ‘You will never be short of a man to rule in Israel.’”

19 “But if you curve and ditch My rules and My commands that I laid out for you, and you all go and serve other gods and bow down to them,”

20 “Then I will snatch you from My land that I gave you, and this temple that I made holy for My Name, I will toss it out of My sight, and I will make it a joke and a talking point among all peoples.”

21 “And this temple, though it is high and mighty now, everyone who passes by it is going to be stunned and say, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and to this temple?’”

22 “And they are going to say, ‘Because they ditched the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who snatched them out of the land of Egypt, and they grabbed onto other gods and bowed down to them and served them. That is why He brought all this disaster on them.’”