1Ch 29 | EE | STEP | Then King David spoke to all the people who were there. ‘God has chosen my son Solomon. But he is young and he has never done anything like this great work. This building must be very beautiful because it is not for man, but for the LORD God.

1 Chronicles 29

David and the people give gifts for the work on the temple

1 Then King David spoke to all the people who were there. ‘God has chosen my son Solomon. But he is young and he has never done anything like this great work. This building must be very beautiful because it is not for man, but for the LORD God. 2 I have given a lot of the valuable things that I had stored for my God’s house. They include gold for the gold work. I have given silver for the things that you will make out of silver. I have given bronze for the things that you will make out of bronze. I have given iron for the things that you will make out of iron. I have given wood for the things that you will make out of wood. I have given a large quantity of all kinds of valuable stones. That includes the valuable stones called onyx, antimony, stones of many colours and also a lot of marble. 3 I want very much that we should build this house for my God. So I have also given a lot of my own gold and silver. I am giving that with all the other things that I have prepared for the holy house of my God. 4 I have given 3000 talents of gold from Ophir. And I have given 7000 talents of best silver to put over the walls of the buildings. 5 And good workers can use that gold and silver to make other things out of gold and silver. Now I want to know who else wants to give to the LORD today.’

6 Then the leaders of the clans and the leaders of the tribes of Israel were happy to give gifts. The officers over groups of 1000 men and over groups of 100 men gave their gifts. And the officers who were over the king’s work gave their gifts. 7 They gave 5000 talents and 10,000 darics of gold and 10,000 talents of silver. And they gave 18,000 talents of bronze and 100,000 talents of iron. They gave this for the work on God’s house. 8 People who had valuable stones gave them to the LORD‘s house. Jehiel from the Gershon clan stored these in a safe place in the LORD‘s house. 9 So the people were very happy because it gave their leaders pleasure to give. They were very happy to give to the LORD. David the king was also very happy.

10 David praised the LORD in front of all the people who were present there. He said,

‘We praise you LORD.

You are the God of our ancestor, Israel (Jacob).

We praise you now and we should praise you for all time.

11 You, LORD, are greater and more beautiful than anyone else is.

You can do anything and you can beat anyone.

You are the king and everything in heaven and on earth is yours, LORD.

You have a great kingdom and you are over everyone and over everything.

12 All valuable things come from you and only you can make someone great or important.

You are the ruler over all things.

You are able to make people strong and to make them powerful.

You can make them great and you can make everybody strong.

13 Now we thank you, our God, and we praise your great name.

14 But I am not a great person and my people are like nothing. But we are able to give all these things to you. You gave to us everything that we have. We have only given back to you some of your own things. 15 We are like strangers and like foreign people to you, as all our ancestors were. We are only here for a short time. We live for a short time and then we go away like shadows. And nobody lives for a very long time. 16 All these things that we have given have come from you, the LORD, our God. Everything that we have given to build a house for your holy name is yours. And it came from you. 17 You are my God. And you can see what we are really like. I know that. And when we do good things it gives pleasure to you. I am happy that I have given these things to you. That is what I really wanted. And now I have seen that your people here have been happy to give to you. And that has made me happy too. 18 You, LORD, are the God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Israel. I pray that your people will always want to do things like this. I pray that you will help your people always to think like this. And I pray that they will always want to be your servants. 19 I ask that you will cause my son Solomon to obey all your commandments, rules and laws. Please let him build your great house. I have given to him all the things that he will need for that.’

David and the people praise the LORD

20 Then David spoke to all the people who were there together. ‘Now praise the LORD, your God’, he said. So all the people praised the LORD, the God of their ancestors. They bent down their heads and they worshipped the LORD. And they fell flat in front of the king.

All the people worship the LORD

21 On the next day, they gave sacrifices to the LORD. They burnt 1000 male cows, 1000 male sheep and 1000 young sheep as gifts to the LORD. They also gave the proper offerings of wine with them. And there were many more sacrifices for the Israelites.

The people anoint Solomon as king

22 They were happy on that day. And they ate and they drank there in front of the LORD.

Then, in front of the LORD, they poured oil on the head of David’s son Solomon for the second time. That made him their king. And they poured oil on Zadok’s head as priest. 23 Solomon’s father David had sat on the LORD‘s throne as king. But now Solomon sat there instead. Everything went well for him and all the people in Israel obeyed him. 24 All King David’s officers and all his soldiers promised to obey King Solomon. And even David’s other sons promised to obey King Solomon.

25 The LORD caused all the people in Israel to think that Solomon was very great. And they honoured him. The LORD had not made any king of Israel before him so great.

David dies

26 Jesse’s son David had ruled over all Israel. 27 He had ruled over Israel for 40 years. He ruled them from Hebron for 7 years and for 33 years he ruled in Jerusalem. 28 He lived for a long time. And he was a good age when he died. God gave many valuable things to him and God made him very great. And his son Solomon ruled instead.

29 The prophets Samuel, Nathan and Gad wrote books about all the things that King David did. They wrote about everything that he did from the beginning to the end. 30 They tell us about the way that he ruled and about his great power. They tell us everything about his life and about what happened in Israel and in all the kingdoms round it.