12. “‘When your life is finished, you will die and be buried with your ancestors. But then I will make one of your own children become the king.
13. He will build a house for my name, and I will make his kingdom strong forever.
14. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he sins, I will use other people to punish him. They will be my whips.
15. But I will never stop loving him. I will continue to be loyal to him. I took away my love and kindness from Saul. I pushed Saul away when I turned to you.
16. Your family of kings will continue—you can depend on that! For you, your kingdom will continue forever! Your throne will stand forever!’”
17. Nathan told David about that vision. He told David everything God had said.
18. Then King David went in and sat in front of the Lord. David said, “Lord GOD, why am I so important to you? Why is my family important? Why have you made me so important?
19. I am nothing but a servant, but Lord GOD, you have also said these kind things about my future family. Lord GOD, you don’t always talk like this to people, do you?
20. How can I continue talking to you? Lord GOD, you know that I am only a servant.
21. You will do all these wonderful things because you said you would do them and because you want to do them. And you decided to let me know about all these things.
22. Lord GOD, this is why you are so great! There is no one like you. There is no god except you! We know that because of what we ourselves have heard about what you did.