“May you be attentive to your servant’s and your people Israel’s requests for help and may you respond to all their prayers to you.

You thoroughly defeated Edom and it has gone to your head! Gloat over your success, but stay in your palace. Why bring calamity on yourself? Why bring down yourself and Judah along with you?”

I was with you wherever you went and I defeated all your enemies before you. Now I will make you as famous as the great men of the earth.

You made Israel your very own nation for all time. You, O Lord, became their God.

“Now, my son, may the Lord be with you! May you succeed and build a temple for the Lord your God, just as he announced you would.

O Lord God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, maintain the motives of your people and keep them devoted to you.

Now give me wisdom and discernment so I can effectively lead this nation. Otherwise no one is able to make judicial decisions for this great nation of yours.”

“If your people Israel are defeated by an enemy because they sinned against you, then if they come back to you, renew their allegiance to you, and pray for your help before you in this temple,

then listen from heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.

Nevertheless you have done some good things; you removed the Asherah poles from the land and you were determined to follow the Lord.”

Our God, you drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it as a permanent possession to the descendants of your friend Abraham.

You defeated Edom and it has gone to your head. Gloat over your success, but stay in your palace. Why bring calamity on yourself? Why bring down yourself and Judah along with you?”

I have now issued a decree that anyone in my kingdom from the people of Israel – even the priests and Levites – who wishes to do so may go up with you to Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cry for help! Do not ignore my sobbing! For I am dependent on you, like one residing outside his native land; I am at your mercy, just as all my ancestors were.

for he is like someone calculating the cost in his mind. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you;

Indeed, O Lord, you have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. For diviners from the east are everywhere; they consult omen readers like the Philistines do. Plenty of foreigners are around.

For though your people, Israel, are as numerous as the sand on the seashore, only a remnant will come back. Destruction has been decreed; just punishment is about to engulf you.

You will not be buried with them, because you destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you! Don’t be frightened, for I am your God! I strengthen you – yes, I help you – yes, I uphold you with my saving right hand!

Like an animal that goes down into a valley to graze, so the Spirit of the Lord granted them rest. In this way you guided your people, gaining for yourself an honored reputation.