Old Testament

New Testament

1 Kings 8:44-54 English Standard Version (ESV)

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 that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name,

45. then hear in heaven their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause.

46. “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near,

47. yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’

48. if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart 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 that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name,

49. then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause

50. and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them

51. (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).

52. Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you.

53. For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your heritage, as you declared through Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.”

54. Now as Solomon finished offering all this prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven.

Read complete chapter 1 Kings 8