2 Samuel 7:2 - Plain English Version

² There was a man called Nathan. He told God’s messages to people. One day, David said to him, “Listen, I live here in this big fancy house, but God’s special box still lives in a tent. I want to build a proper house for that special box.”

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

² that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

² The king said to Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within curtains.

American Standard Version (1901)

² that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.

Common English Bible

² the king said to the prophet Nathan, “Look! I’m living in a cedar palace, but God’s chest is housed in a tent!”

Catholic Public Domain Version

² he said to the prophet Nathan, "Do you not see that I live in a house of cedar, and that the ark of God has been placed in the midst of tent skins?"

2 Samuel 7:2 Cross References

2 Samuel 11:11

He answered, “I can’t go back to my house. There are big mobs of our soldiers still over there, fighting the Ammon mob. The big boss soldier Joab, and the other boss soldiers, and all the other soldiers from Judah and from all of Israel, they are all camped out in the dry country. God’s special box is there too. I can’t go back to my house. I can’t go and eat meat and drink wine. I can’t go back and sleep with my wife. I’m telling you straight, with God listening, I can’t do that.”

2 Samuel 12:1

God talked to Nathan, the man that told God’s message to people. God said, “Go to David and tell him this story, ‘2 men lived in the same town. One was very rich and had all kinds of things. But the other one was very poor. He had nothing.

2 Samuel 7:17

Then Nathan told David everything that God said. (We have not yet translated 7:18—10:19.)

John 2:17

Jesus’s followers saw him do that, and they remembered that a long time ago God told one of his men to write this in God’s book, “I really love God’s house. I love it so much that I will do anything to look after it.” Then they knew that God’s man wrote that about Jesus.

Acts 7:46

God was good to David. And David wanted to build a ceremony house, instead of that tent, for the God of us Israel people. So David asked God to let him build that house.