Quotes About Worship

When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark,

and they brought up the ark of the LORD and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings. So the priests and Levites carried them up.

There, before the ark, King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, beneath the wings of the cherubim.

For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles.

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

And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, the cloud filled the house of the LORD

so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.

Then Solomon declared: “The LORD has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.

I have indeed built You an exalted house, a place for You to dwell forever.”

And as the whole assembly of Israel stood there, the king turned around and blessed them all

and said: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying,

Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

But the LORD said to my father David, ëSince it was in your heart to build a house for My Name, you have done well to have this in your heart.

Now the LORD has fulfilled the word that He spoke. I have succeeded my father David, and I sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised. I have built the house for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

And there I have provided a place for the ark, which contains the covenant of the LORD that He made with our fathers when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,

and said: “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth below, keeping Your covenant of loving devotion with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts.

Therefore now, O LORD, God of Israel, keep for Your servant, my father David, what You promised when You said: ëYou will never fail to have a man to sit before Me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants guard their way to walk before Me as you have done.í

And now, O God of Israel, please confirm what You promised to Your servant, my father David.

But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain You, much less this temple I have built.

May Your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, toward the place of which You said, ëMy Name shall be there,í so that You may hear the prayer that Your servant prays toward this place.

When a man sins against his neighbor and is required to take an oath, and he comes to take an oath before Your altar in this temple,

then may whatever prayer or petition Your people Israel make—each knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple—