2. All the people of Israel assembled before King Solomon during the festival in the month of Ethanim (the seventh month).
3. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark;
4. and they brought up the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting with all the sacred vessels that were in the tent. The priests and Levites brought them up.
5. King Solomon and the entire community of Israel, gathered for the occasion before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen too many to number or count.
6. The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, the inner sanctuary of the house, the holy of holies, beneath the wings of the cherubim.
7. The cherubim had their wings spread out over the place of the ark, sheltering the ark and its poles from above.
8. The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the holy place in front of the inner sanctuary. They cannot be seen from outside, but they remain there to this day.
9. There was nothing in the ark but the two stone tablets which Moses had put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they went forth from the land of Egypt.
10. When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord
11. so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.
12. Then Solomon said,“The Lord intends to dwell in the dark cloud;
13. I have indeed built you a princely house,the base for your enthronement forever.”
14. The king turned and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while the whole assembly of Israel stood.
15. He said: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his own mouth spoke a promise to David my father and by his hand fulfilled it, saying: