Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What is this house that you would build for me? And what is this place of my rest?
Is it, then, to be understood that truly God would dwell upon the earth? For if heaven, and the heavens of heavens, are not able to contain you, how much less this house, which I have built?
And when the king had risen up and was standing, he said: "Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I thought that I would build a house, in which the ark of the covenant of the Lord, the footstool of our God, might rest. And so I prepared everything for its building.
How then is it to be believe that God would dwell with men upon the earth? If heaven and the heavens of the heavens do not contain you, how much less this house that I have built?
For this is said by the Most High, the Sublime One, who dwells in eternity. And his name is Holy, for he dwells in the exalted and holy place, and he acts with a restrained and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
The glory of Lebanon will arrive before you, the fir tree and the box tree and the pine tree together, to adorn the place of my sanctification. And I will glorify the place of my feet.
For, from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place, a clean oblation is being sacrificed and offered to my name. For my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord of hosts.
But he said to them in response: "Do you see all these things? Amen I say to you, there shall not remain here stone upon stone, which is not torn down."