God’s covenant with David
17
📚Now it came about, as David was sitting in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, “Look, I live in a cedar house, but the ark of the covenant of the LORD remains under curtains”. 2 📚Then Nathan said to David, “Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you”.
3 📚And the same night it came about that the word of God came to Nathan, saying, 4 📚“Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD: You shall not build a house for me in which to dwell, 5 📚because I have not dwelt in a house since the day that I brought Israel up from Egypt to this day but have gone from tent to tent, from one dwelling place to another. 6 📚Wherever I travelled with all Israel, did I speak a word to any of the judges 📖 of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built a cedar house for me?’
7 📚“Now therefore this is what you shall say to my servant David: ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people Israel; 8 📚and I was with you wherever you travelled, and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and have made a name for you like the name of the great men who are in the earth. 9 📚Also I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, and they will live in their place and will not be moved any more; nor will the children of wickedness destroy them any more, as at the beginning, 10 📚and since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover I tell you that the LORD will build a house for you.
11 📚“And it shall come about, when your days are ended and you must go to be with your ancestors, that I will raise up your offspring after you, who will be of your sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 📚He will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 📚I will be his father and he will be my son, and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it away from the one who was before you, 14 📚but I will set him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established for ever.’ ”
15 📚So Nathan spoke to David in accordance with all these words, and in accordance with this whole vision.
David’s prayer
16 📚And David the king came and sat before the LORD, and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me to this point? 17 📚And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O God, for you have also spoken of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and have regarded me according to the standard of a man of high degree, O LORD God. 18 📚What more can David say to you for honouring your servant? For you know your servant. 19 📚O LORD, you have done all this great thing for your servant’s sake, and in accordance with your own heart, in making known all these great things. 20 📚O LORD, there is no one like you, nor is there any God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 21 📚And what one nation in the earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his own people, to make for yourself a great and awesome name, by driving out nations from before your people, whom you have redeemed out of Egypt? 22 📚For you have made your people Israel your own people forever, and you, LORD, have become their God.
23 📚“Therefore now, LORD, let what you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house be established forever, and do as you have said. 24 📚Let it be established, so that your name may be magnified forever, saying, ‘The LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, is the God for Israel.’ And let the house of your servant David be established in your presence. 25 📚For you, O my God, have told your servant that you will build a house for him. Therefore your servant has found in his heart to pray in your presence. 26 📚And now, LORD, you are God, and have promised this goodness to your servant. 27 📚Now therefore let it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may be before you forever. For you have blessed, O LORD, and it will be blessed forever”.