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Simon Son of Onias

50The leader of his brothers and the pride of his people^*
   was the high priest, Simon son of Onias,
who in his life repaired the house,
   and in his time fortified the temple.
¹¹ When he put on his glorious robe
   and clothed himself in perfect splendour,
when he went up to the holy altar,
   he made the court of the sanctuary glorious.

¹² When he received the portions from the hands of the priests,
   as he stood by the hearth of the altar
with a garland of brothers around him,
   he was like a young cedar on Lebanon
   surrounded by the trunks of palm trees.
¹³ All the sons of Aaron in their splendour
   held the Lord’s offering in their hands
   before the whole congregation of Israel.
¹⁴ Finishing the service at the altars,^*
   and arranging the offering to the Most High, the Almighty,
¹⁵ he held out his hand for the cup
   and poured a drink-offering of the blood of the grape;
he poured it out at the foot of the altar,
   a pleasing odour to the Most High, the king of all.
¹⁶ Then the sons of Aaron shouted;
   they blew their trumpets of hammered metal;
they sounded a mighty fanfare
   as a reminder before the Most High.
¹⁷ Then all the people together quickly
   fell to the ground on their faces
to worship their Lord,
   the Almighty, God Most High.

¹⁸ Then the singers praised him with their voices
   in sweet and full-toned melody.^*
19 And the people of the Lord Most High offered
   their prayers before the Merciful One,
until the order of worship of the Lord was ended,
   and they completed his ritual.
²⁰ Then Simon^* came down and raised his hands
   over the whole congregation of Israelites,
to pronounce the blessing of the Lord with his lips,
   and to glory in his name;
²¹ and they bowed down in worship a second time,
   to receive the blessing from the Most High.

A Benediction

²² And now bless the God of all,
   who everywhere works great wonders,
who fosters our growth from birth,
   and deals with us according to his mercy.
²³ May he give us^* gladness of heart,
   and may there be peace in our^* days
   in Israel, as in the days of old.
²⁴ May he entrust to us his mercy,
   and may he deliver us in our^* days!

5Thus all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished. Solomon brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, and stored the silver, the gold, and all the vessels in the treasuries of the house of God.

The Ark Brought into the Temple

2 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the people of Israel, in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. ³And all the Israelites assembled before the king at the festival that is in the seventh month. ⁴And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites carried the ark. ⁵So they brought up the ark, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent; the priests and the Levites brought them up. ⁶King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, who had assembled before him, were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be numbered or counted. ⁷Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. ⁸For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁹The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside; they are there to this day. ¹⁰There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant^* with the people of Israel after they came out of Egypt.

11 Now when the priests came out of the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to their divisions), ¹²all the levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, their sons and kindred, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres, stood east of the altar with one hundred and twenty priests who were trumpeters, ¹³it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord,
‘For he is good,
   for his steadfast love endures for ever’,
the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, ¹⁴so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.