Tuesday in Season after Pentecost

1Verse 1. In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD. 2Verse 2. The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. 3Verse 3. The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits in front of the temple. 4Verse 4. He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple. 5Verse 5. Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. 6Verse 6. The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls. 7Verse 7. The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built. 8Verse 8. The entrance to the bottom floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor. 9Verse 9. So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar. 10Verse 10. He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar. 11Verse 11. Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying: 12Verse 12. “As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David. 13Verse 13. And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.” 14Verse 14. So Solomon built the temple and finished it.

16Verse 16. But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments. 17Verse 17. They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them. 18Verse 18. Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies, 19Verse 19. You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go. 20Verse 20. You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst. 21Verse 21. For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. 22Verse 22. You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan. 23Verse 23. You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24Verse 24. So their descendants went in and possessed the land; You subdued before them the Canaanites dwelling in the land. You delivered into their hands the kings and peoples of the land, to do with them as they wished. 25Verse 25. They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness. 26Verse 26. But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies. 27Verse 27. So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies. 28Verse 28. But as soon as they had rest, they again did evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, who had dominion over them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven, and You delivered them many times in Your compassion. 29Verse 29. You admonished them to turn back to Your law, but they were arrogant and disobeyed Your commandments. They sinned against Your ordinances, by which a man will live if he practices them. They turned a stubborn shoulder; they stiffened their necks and would not obey. 30Verse 30. You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples. 31Verse 31. But in Your great compassion, You did not put an end to them; nor did You forsake them, for You are a gracious and compassionate God.