2 Chronicles 6:1

⁸Smoke went out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it. ⁹He bowed the heavens also, and came down. Thick darkness was under his feet. ¹⁰He rode on a cherub, and flew. Yes, he soared on the wings of the wind. ¹¹He made darkness his hiding place, his pavilion around him, darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.

²and the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Most Holy Place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark; lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud on the mercy seat.

²¹The people stayed at a distance, and Moses came near to the thick darkness where God was.

³The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. The LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

²Clouds and darkness are around him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

¹¹You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.

¹⁸For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm,

¹²Then Solomon said, “The LORD has said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. ¹³I have surely built you a house of habitation, a place for you to dwell in forever.”

¹⁴The king turned his face around and blessed all the assembly of Israel; and all the assembly of Israel stood. ¹⁵He said, “Blessed is the LORD, the God of Israel, who spoke with his mouth to David your father, and has with his hand fulfilled it, saying, ¹⁶‘Since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel to build a house, that my name might be there; but I chose David to be over my people Israel.’

¹⁷“Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁸But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart. ¹⁹Nevertheless, you shall not build the house; but your son who shall come out of your body, he shall build the house for my name.’ ²⁰The LORD has established his word that he spoke; for I have risen up in the place of David my father, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. ²¹There I have set a place for the ark, in which is the LORD’s covenant, which he made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

²²Solomon stood before the LORD’s altar in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven; ²³and he said, “LORD, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keeps covenant and loving kindness with your servants who walk before you with all their heart; ²⁴who has kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is today. ²⁵Now therefore, may LORD, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail from you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’

²⁶“Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father. ²⁷But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built! ²⁸Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant and for his supplication, LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you today; ²⁹that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant prays toward this place. ³⁰Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.

³¹“If a man sins against his neighbor, and an oath is laid on him to cause him to swear, and he comes and swears before your altar in this house, ³²then hear in heaven, and act, and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness.

³³“When your people Israel are struck down before the enemy because they have sinned against you, if they turn again to you and confess your name, and pray and make supplication to you in this house, ³⁴then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them again to the land which you gave to their fathers.

³⁵“When the sky is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and confess your name, and turn from their sin when you afflict them, ³⁶then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of your servants, and of your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on your land which you have given to your people for an inheritance.

³⁷“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, ³⁸whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands toward this house, ³⁹then hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to every man according to all his ways, whose heart you know (for you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men); ⁴⁰that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.

⁴¹“Moreover, concerning the foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, when he comes out of a far country for your name’s sake ⁴²(for they shall hear of your great name and of your mighty hand and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, ⁴³hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you for; that all the peoples of the earth may know your name, to fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by your name.

⁴⁴“If your people go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way you shall send them, and they pray to the LORD toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name, ⁴⁵then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. ⁴⁶If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; ⁴⁷yet if they repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly,’ ⁴⁸if they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen and the house which I have built for your name, ⁴⁹then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven, your dwelling place, and maintain their cause; ⁵⁰and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions in which they have transgressed against you; and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them

¹⁵Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶The LORD’s glory settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. The seventh day he called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud. ¹⁷The appearance of the LORD’s glory was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. ¹⁸Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.