2 Chronicles
Chapter 5
1 So Solomon finished all the work for God’s house. He brought in all the special things his father David had given, including the silver, gold, and tools, and placed them in the storerooms of God’s house.
2 Solomon gathered the senior leaders of Israel, the top officials of the tribes, and the heads of the families of Israel’s children in Jerusalem. They came to move God’s covenant chest from David’s city, which is Zion.
3 So all the men of Israel gathered around the king during the festival in the seventh month.
4 All the leaders of Israel came, and the Levites carried the ark.
5 They carried the chest and the meeting tent, along with all the sacred objects that were in the tent. The priests and Levites did this.
6 King Solomon and all of Israel’s people gathered around the ark gave so many sheep and oxen as sacrifices that they couldn’t be counted.
7 The priests put the Covenant Box of God in its place, inside the inner sanctuary of the temple, under the wings of the cherubim.
8 The cherubim spread their wings over the ark’s spot, covering the ark and its poles from above.
9 They pulled the poles of the ark out so that their ends could be seen from the ark in front of the most holy place, but they were not seen from outside. And they are still there today.
10 In the ark there was only the two stone tablets that Moses placed inside at Horeb, where God made an agreement with the Israelites after they left Egypt.
11 When the priests left the holy place (all the priests there were made holy and didn’t follow their usual order):
12 The Levite singers, from Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, along with their sons and relatives, dressed in white linen and playing cymbals, stringed instruments, and harps, stood at the east side of the altar, accompanied by 120 priests blowing trumpets.
13 As the musicians and singers unified to praise and thank God, and when they raised their voices with trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments, saying, “God is good; his love lasts forever,” the temple filled with a cloud, the God’s temple.
14 The priests could not stay and serve because of the cloud, for God’s glory filled God’s house.