The Bible, Douay-Rheims Part 255

6:38. And return to thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their captivity, to which they were led away, and adore thee towards the way of their own land which thou gavest their fathers, and of the city, which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built to thy name:

6:39. Then hear thou from heaven, that is, from thy firm dwelling place, their prayers, and do judgment, and forgive thy people, although they have sinned:

6:40. For thou art my G.o.d: let thy eyes, I beseech thee, be open, and let thy ears be attentive to the prayer, that is made in this place.

6:41. Now therefore arise, O Lord G.o.d, into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord G.o.d, put on salvation, and thy saints rejoice in good things.

6:42. O Lord G.o.d, turn not away the face of thy anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant.

2 Paralipomenon Chapter 7

Fire from heaven consumeth the sacrifices. The solemnity of the dedication of the temple. G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

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 a.s.sembly, 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 G.o.ds, 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on strange G.o.ds, and adored them, and wors.h.i.+pped them: therefore all these evils are come upon them.

2 Paralipomenon Chapter 8

Solomon's buildings and other acts.

8:1. And at the end of twenty years after Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house:

8:2. He built the cities which Hiram had given to Solomon, and caused the children of Israel to dwell there.

8:3. He went also into Emath Suba, and possessed it.

8:4. And he built Palmira in the desert, and he built other strong cities in Emath.

8:5. And he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, walled cities with gates and bars and locks.

8:6. Balaath also and all the strong cities that were Solomon's, and all the cities of the chariots, and the cities of the hors.e.m.e.n. All that Solomon had a mind, and designed, he built in Jerusalem and in Liba.n.u.s, and in all the land of his dominion.

8:7. All the people that were left of the Hethites, and the Amorrhites, and the Pherezites, and the Hevites, and the Jebusites, that were not of the stock of Israel:

8:8. Of their children, and of the posterity, whom the children of Israel had not slain, Solomon made to be the tributaries, unto this day.

8:9. But of the children of Israel he set none to serve in the king's works: for they were men of war, and chief captains, and rulers of his chariots and hors.e.m.e.n.

8:10. And all the chief captains of king Solomon's army were two hundred and fifty, who taught the people.

8:11. And he removed the daughter of Pharao from the city of David, to the house which he had built for her. For the king said: My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, for it is sanctified: because the ark of the Lord came into it.

8:12. Then Solomon offered holocausts to the Lord upon the altar of the Lord which he had built before the porch,

8:13. That every day an offering might be made on it according to the ordinance of Moses, in the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the festival days three times a year, that is to say, in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles.

8:14. And he appointed according to the order of David his father the offices of the priests in their ministries: and the Levites in their order to give praise, and minister before the priests according to the duty of every day: and the porters in their divisions by gate and gate: for so David the man of G.o.d had commanded.

8:15. And the priests and Levites departed not from the king's commandments, as to any thing that he had commanded, and as to the keeping of the treasures.

8:16. Solomon had all charges prepared, from the day that he founded the house of the Lord, until the day wherein he finished it.

8:17. Then Solomon went to Asiongaber, and to Ailath, on the coast of the Red Sea, which is in the land of Edom.

8:18. And Hiram sent him s.h.i.+ps by the hands of his servants, and skilful mariners, and they went with Solomon's servants to Ophir, and they took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought it to king Solomon.

2 Paralipomenon Chapter 9