A reading from the book of first kings.

As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord, and the king's house,

and all that Solomon desired to build, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time,

as he had appeared to him at Gibbon, and the Lord said to him,

I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me.

I have consecrated this house that you have

built by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for

you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked with integrity of heart and uprightness,

doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules,

then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promise David your father saying,

You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel, but if you turn aside from following me,

you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you,

but go and serve other gods and worship them. Then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them. And the house

that I have consecrated from my name I will cast out of my sight. And Israel will become a proverb

and a byword among all peoples. And this house will become a heap of ruins. Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will

hiss, and they will say, why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? Then they will say,

because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt,

and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served served them. Therefore the Lord has brought all this

disaster on them. At the end of 20 years, in which Solomon had built the two houses, the house of the

Lord and the king's house, and Hiram King of Tyre had supplied Solomon with cedar and cypress, timber,

and gold, as much as he desired. King Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the

land of Galilee. But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him,

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