The LORD will choose a single place where he is to be worshiped, and there you must bring to him everything that I have commanded: your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, and those special gifts that you have promised to the LORD.

Go to the one place of worship and slaughter there one of your sheep or cattle for the Passover meal to honor the LORD your God.

each of you must place in a basket the first part of each crop that you harvest and you must take it with you to the one place of worship.

But at the same time he made them slaves, to cut wood and carry water for the people of Israel and for the LORD's altar. To this day they have continued to do this work in the place where the LORD has chosen to be worshiped.

After they had conquered the land, the entire community of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the Tent of the LORD's presence.

'From the time I brought my people out of Egypt, I have not chosen any city in all the land of Israel in which a temple should be built where I would be worshiped. But I chose you, David, to rule my people.' "

"And now the LORD has kept his promise. I have succeeded my father as king of Israel, and I have built the Temple for the worship of the LORD God of Israel.

Watch over this Temple day and night, this place where you have chosen to be worshiped. Hear me when I face this Temple and pray.

Solomon's son Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen from all the territory of Israel as the place where he was to be worshiped. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah from Ammon.

So David said, "This is where the Temple of the LORD God will be. Here is the altar where the people of Israel are to offer burnt offerings."

the LORD appeared to him at night. He said to him, "I have heard your prayer, and I accept this Temple as the place where sacrifices are to be offered to me.

Instead he chose the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he dearly loves.

more than any other place in Israel he loves the city of Jerusalem.

Listen, city of God, to the wonderful things he says about you:

"My Samaritan ancestors worshiped God on this mountain, but you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where we should worship God."

You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship, because it is from the Jews that salvation comes.

Instead, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, with its thousands of angels.

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion; with him were 144,000 people who have his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.

The LORD is my strong defender; he is the one who has saved me. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will sing about his greatness.

I will meet you there, and from above the lid between the two winged creatures I will give you all my laws for the people of Israel.

When Moses went into the Tent to talk with the LORD, he heard the LORD speaking to him from above the lid on the Covenant Box, between the two winged creatures.

"But can you, O God, really live on earth? Not even all of heaven is large enough to hold you, so how can this Temple that I have built be large enough?

The LORD has chosen Zion; he wants to make it his home:

"This is where I will live forever; this is where I want to rule.

The LORD says, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house, then, could you build for me, what kind of place for me to live in?

I myself created the whole universe! I am pleased with those who are humble and repentant, who fear me and obey me.

"But the Most High God does not live in houses built by human hands; as the prophet says,

Did not I myself make all these things?'

You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself.

In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit.

For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity,