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God’s Covenant with David

17Now when David settled in his house, David said to the prophet Nathan, ‘I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent.’ ²Nathan said to David, ‘Do all that you have in mind, for God is with you.’

3 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying: ⁴Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: You shall not build me a house to live in. ⁵For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought out Israel to this very day, but I have lived in a tent and a tabernacle.^{* 6}Wherever I have moved about among all Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? ⁷Now therefore, thus 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; ⁸and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies before you; and I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. ⁹I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall wear them down no more, as they did formerly, ¹⁰from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will subdue all your enemies.

Moreover, I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house. ¹¹When your days are fulfilled to go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹²He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne for ever. ¹³I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, ¹⁴but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom for ever, and his throne shall be established for ever. ¹⁵In accordance with all these words and all this vision, Nathan spoke to David.