2 Chronicles 7

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the house. The priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD. All the Israelites saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD over the house. They bowed with their faces to the ground on the pavement, worshiped, and gave thanks to the LORD: “For he is good; for his faithful love endures forever.” The king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD. King Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. The priests stood at their posts, and the Levites with the musical instruments of the LORD that King David had made to give thanks to the LORD—“For his faithful love endures forever”—as David praised through them. The priests sounded trumpets opposite them, and all Israel stood. Solomon consecrated the middle of the court in front of the house of the LORD, for there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze altar Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the fat. At that time Solomon kept the festival for seven days, with all Israel, a very great assembly, from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of Egypt. On the eighth day they held a solemn assembly, for they had celebrated the dedication of the altar for seven days and the festival for seven days. On the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sent the people to their tents, joyful and glad in heart for the goodness the LORD had shown to David, to Solomon, and to his people Israel. Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king's palace. He successfully accomplished all that had come into his heart to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house. The LORD appeared to Solomon at night and said to him, “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut the heavens so there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land, or send a plague among my people, and 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. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place. I have now chosen and consecrated this house for my name to be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there always. As for you, if you walk before me as David your father walked, doing all I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and ordinances, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You will never lack a man to rule in Israel.’ But if you turn away and abandon my statutes and commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot them from my land, which I gave them, and this house I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my presence. I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. Everyone who passes by this house, which was so exalted, will be appalled and ask, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land and this house?’ They will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and clung to other gods, worshiped them, and served them. That is why he has brought all this calamity on them.’”

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