שָׁם

Let every priest receive it from his constituency, and let it be used to repair any damage found in the temple.”

Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the house of the LORD. There the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the house of the LORD.

And conspirators plotted against Amaziah in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. But men were sent after him to Lachish, and they killed him there.

Menahem exacted this money from each of the wealthy men of Israel—fifty shekels of silver from each man—to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria withdrew and did not remain in the land.

At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, drove out the men of Judah, and sent the Edomites into Elath, where they live to this day.

They burned incense on all the high places like the nations that the LORD had driven out before them. They did wicked things, provoking the LORD to anger.

Now when the settlers first lived there, they did not worship the LORD, so He sent lions among them, which killed some of them.

Then the king of Assyria commanded: “Send back one of the priests you carried off from Samaria, and have him go back to live there and teach the requirements of the God of the land.”

Nevertheless, the people of each nation continued to make their own gods in the cities where they had settled, and they set them up in the shrines that the people of Samaria had made on the high places.

They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods according to the customs of the nations from which they had been carried away.

So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.

He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women had woven tapestries for Asherah.

Then Josiah brought all the priests from the cities of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He tore down the high places of the gates at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which was to the left of the city gate.

He pulled down the altars that the kings of Judah had set up on the roof near the upper chamber of Ahaz, and the altars that Manasseh had set up in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD. The king pulverized them there and threw their dust into the Kidron Valley.

And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the hillside, and he sent someone to take the bones out of the tombs, and he burned them on the altar to defile it, according to the word of the LORD proclaimed by the man of God who had foretold these things.

On the altars he slaughtered all the priests of the high places, and he burned human bones on them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

For the LORD had said, “I will remove Judah from My sight, just as I removed Israel. I will reject this city Jerusalem, which I chose, and the temple of which I said, ‘My Name shall be there.’”

Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, where he died.

As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD.

…the Pathrusites, the Casluhites (from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorites.

These six sons were born to David in Hebron, where he reigned seven years and six months. And David reigned in Jerusalem thirty-three years,

These were the potters who lived at Netaim and Gederah. They lived there in the service of the king.

There they found rich, good pasture, and the land was spacious, peaceful, and quiet; for some Hamites had lived there formerly.

These who were noted by name came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah. They attacked the Hamites in their dwellings as well as the Meunites who were there, devoting them to destruction even to this day. Then they settled in their place, because there was pasture for their flocks.

…and struck down the remnant of the Amalekites who had escaped. And they have lived there to this day.

Then David and all the Israelites marched to Jerusalem (that is, Jebus), where the Jebusites inhabited the land.

He was with David at Pas-dammim when the Philistines gathered there for battle. At a place with a field full of barley, the troops fled from the Philistines.

They spent three days there eating and drinking with David, for their relatives had provided for them.

David and all Israel went up to Baalah of Judah (that is, Kiriath-jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the LORD, who is enthroned between the cherubim—the ark that is called by the Name.

And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and He struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.

So David and his men went up to Baal-perazim, where he defeated the Philistines and said, “Like a bursting flood, God has burst out against my enemies by my hand.” So they called that place Baal-perazim.

There the Philistines abandoned their gods, and David ordered that they be burned in the fire.

So David left Asaph and his associates there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to minister there regularly according to the daily requirements,

And there he built an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called upon the LORD, who answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there.

And Solomon and the whole assembly went to the high place at Gibeon because it was the location of God’s Tent of Meeting, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness.

Solomon offered sacrifices there before the LORD on the bronze altar at the Tent of Meeting, where he offered a thousand burnt offerings.

The poles of the ark extended far enough that their ends were visible from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are there to this day.

‘Since the day I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house so that My Name would be there, nor have I chosen anyone to be ruler over My people Israel.

But now I have chosen Jerusalem for My Name to be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’

And there I have placed the ark, which contains the covenant of the LORD that He made with the children of Israel.”

May Your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your Name, so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

…and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’

Then Solomon consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of the LORD, and there he offered the burnt offerings and the fat of the peace offerings, since the bronze altar he had made could not hold all these offerings.

For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.