Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
1 Chronicles 17
After David had settled in his house, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Look, I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under tent curtains.” Nathan said to David, “Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.”
But that night the word of God came to Nathan, saying, “Go and say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD: You are not the one who will build me a house for me to dwell in. For I have not lived in a house from the day I brought Israel up until this day, but I have moved from tent to tent and from dwelling place to dwelling place. Throughout all the places where I have walked with all Israel, did I ever speak a word to any of Israel’s judges, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
“Now then, say this to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of Hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the flock, to be leader over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies before you. I will make for you a name like the name of the great ones who are on the earth. I will appoint a place for my people Israel and plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be troubled no more. The children of wickedness will no longer wear them down, as they did at first, and since the days when I appointed judges over my people Israel. I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I tell you: the LORD will build you a house.
When your days are fulfilled and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, one from among your sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me. I will not take my steadfast love away from him, as I took it away from the one who was before you. I will establish him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever.’”
Nathan spoke to David according to all these words and according to all this vision.
Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said, “Who am I, LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far? Yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O God; you have also spoken concerning your servant’s house for a distant future, and you have regarded me according to the order of humankind on high, LORD God. What more can David say to you for honoring your servant? You know your servant. O LORD, for the sake of your servant and according to your heart, you have done all this greatness, making known all these great things.
O LORD, there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And who is like your people Israel, one nation on the earth, whom God went to redeem as a people for himself, to make for yourself a name through great and awe-inspiring deeds, driving out nations before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt? You made your people Israel your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.
“Now, O LORD, let the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house stand forever, and do as you have spoken. Let your name stand and be magnified forever, so that people may say, ‘The LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, is God over Israel.’ Let the house of David your servant be established before you. For you, my God, have disclosed to your servant that you will build him a house. Therefore your servant has found courage to pray before you. Now, O LORD, you are God, and you have spoken this good thing concerning your servant. And now, may it please you to bless your servant’s house, that it may continue forever before you. For you, O LORD, have blessed it, and it is blessed forever.”