February 5th, 2004, Memorial of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr.

A reading from the first book of kings.

The elders of Israel and all the leaders of the tribes,

the princes in the ancestral houses of the children of Israel,

came to King Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Lord's covenant from the city of David, which is Zion.

All the people of Israel assembled before King Solomon during the festival in the month of

Ethanim, the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the

ark. They carried the ark of the Lord and the meeting tent with all the sacred vessels that were in the

tent. The priests and Levites carried them.

King Solomon and the entire community of Israel present for the occasion

sacrificed before the ark, sheep and oxen, too many to number or count.

The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place beneath the wings of the

cherubim in the sanctuary, the holy of holies of the temple.

The cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the ark, sheltering the ark and its poles from above.

There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets which Moses had put there at

Horib, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel at their departure from the land

of Egypt. When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord so that the

priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord's glory had filled

the temple of the Lord.

Then Solomon said, The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud.

I have truly built you a princely house,

a dwelling where you may abide forever.

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