Fire from Heaven

(Psalm 135:1-21; Psalm 136:1-26)

1And when Solomon had made an end of his prayer, fire came down from heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims: and the majesty of the Lord filled the house. 2Neither could the priests enter into the temple of the Lord, because the majesty of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord. 3Moreover all the children of Israel saw the fire coming down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house: and falling down with their faces to the ground, upon the stone pavement, they adored and praised the Lord: because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever.

Solomon's Solemn Sacrifice

(1 Kings 8:62-66)

4And the king and all the people sacrificed victims before the Lord. 5And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand rams: and the king and all the people dedicated the house of God. 6And the priests stood in their offices: and the Levites with the instruments of music of the Lord, which king David made to praise the Lord: because his mercy endureth for ever, singing the hymns of David by their ministry: and the priests sounded with trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.

7Solomon also sanctified the middle of the court before the temple of the Lord: for he offered there the holocausts, and the fat of the peace offerings: because the brazen altar, which he had made, could not hold the holocausts and the sacrifices and the fat:

The Feast of Dedication

(Ezra 6:16-18)

8And Solomon kept the solemnity at that time seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entrance of Emath to the torrent of Egypt. 9And he made on the eighth day a solemn assembly, because he had kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and had celebrated the solemnity seven days. 10So on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent away the people to their dwellings, joyful and glad for the good that the Lord had done to David, and to Solomon, and to all Israel his people.

God's Promise and Warning

(1 Kings 9:1-9)

11And Solomon finished the house of the Lord, and the king's house, and all that he had designed in his heart to do, in the house of the Lord, and in his own house, and he prospered.

12And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said: I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. 13If I shut up heaven, and there fall no rain, or if I give orders, and command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people: 14And my people, upon whom my name is called, being converted, shall make supplication to me, and seek out my face, and do penance for their most wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and will heal their land. 15My eyes also shall be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in this place. 16For I have chosen, and have sanctified this place, that my name may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there perpetually. 17And as for thee, if thou walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and keep my justices and my judgments: 18I will raise up the throne of thy kingdom, as I promised to David thy father, saying: There shall not fail thee a man of thy stock to be ruler in Israel.

19But if you turn away, and forsake my justices, and my commandments which I have set before you, and shall go and serve strange gods, and adore them, 20I will pluck you up by the root out of my land which I have given you: and this house which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast away from before my face, and will make it a byword, and an example among all nations. 21And this house shall be for a proverb to all that pass by, and they shall be astonished and say: Why hath the Lord done thus to this land, and to this house? 22And they shall answer: Because they forsook the Lord the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on strange gods, and adored them, and worshipped them: therefore all these evils are come upon them.