Fire from heaven consumeth the sacrifices. The solemnity of the
dedication of the temple. God signifieth his having heard Solomon’s
prayer: yet so if he continue to serve him.
7:1. And when Solomon had made an end of his prayer, fire came down
from heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims: and the
majesty of the Lord filled the house.
7:2. Neither could the priests enter into the temple of the Lord,
because the majesty of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord.
7:3. Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire coming down, and
the glory of the Lord upon the house: and falling down with their faces
to the ground, upon the stone pavement, they adored and praised the
Lord: because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever.
7:4. And the king and all the people sacrificed victims before the
Lord.
7:5. And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen,
and one hundred and twenty thousand rams: and the king and all the
people dedicated the house of God.
7:6. And the priests stood in their offices: and the Levites with the
instruments of music of the Lord, which king David made to praise the
Lord: because his mercy endureth for ever, singing the hymns of David
by their ministry: and the priests sounded with trumpets before them,
and all Israel stood.
7:7. Solomon also sanctified the middle of the court before the temple
of the Lord: for he offered there the holocausts, and the fat of the
peace offerings: because the brazen altar, which he had made, could not
hold the holocausts and the sacrifices and the fat:
7:8. And Solomon kept the solemnity at that time seven days, and all
Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entrance of Emath
to the torrent of Egypt.
7:9. And he made on the eighth day a solemn assembly, because he had
kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and had celebrated the
solemnity seven days.
7:10. So on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent
away the people to their dwellings, joyful and glad for the good that
the Lord had done to David, and to Solomon, and to all Israel his
people.
7:11. And Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king’s house,
and all that he had designed in his heart to do, in the house of the
Lord, and in his own house, and he prospered.
7:12. And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said: I have heard thy
prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of
sacrifice.
7:13. If I shut up heaven, and there fall no rain, or if I give orders,
and command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence
among my people:
7:14. And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted,
shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for
their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive
their sins and will heal their land.
7:15. My eyes also shall be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer
of him that shall pray in this place.
7:16. For I have chosen, and have sanctified this place, that my name
may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there
perpetually.
7:17. And as for thee, if thou walk before me, as David thy father
walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and keep my
justices and my judgments:
7:18. I will raise up the throne of thy kingdom, as I promised to David
thy father, saying: There shall not fail thee a man of thy stock to be
ruler in Israel.
7:19. But if you turn away, and forsake my justices, and my
commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve
strange gods, and adore them,
7:20. I will pluck you up by the root out of my land which I have given
you: and this house which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast
away from before my face, and will make it a byword, and an example
among all nations.
7:21. And this house shall be for a proverb to all that pass by, and
they shall be astonished and say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this
land, and to this house?
7:22. And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord the God of
their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold
on strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped them: therefore all
these evils are come upon them.