2 Crónicas 5

The ark is brought into the temple

¹So all the work that Solomon did on the house of the LORD was finished. Then Solomon brought in the things his father David had dedicated, and he put the silver, the gold and all the vessels in the treasuries of the house of God.

²Then Solomon called together to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral families of the Israelites. They were to bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD up from the city of David, that is, Zion. ³All the men of Israel gathered before the king at the festival, which was in the seventh month. ⁴When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites picked up the ark. ⁵They brought up the ark, the tent of meeting, and all the holy utensils that were in the tent. The Levitical priests carried them up.^{a 6}King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had gathered to him were in front of the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁷The priests then carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD into its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubim. ⁸The cherubim spread their wings over the place where the ark stood, and so the cherubim formed a covering above the ark and its poles. ⁹The poles were so long that their ends, reaching out from the ark, could be seen in front of the inner sanctuary, though not from outside. It is still there to this day.^{b 10}The ark held nothing but the two tablets Moses had put in it at Horeb, where the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

The cloud fills the house

¹¹Then the priests came out of the holy place. All the priests who were present had consecrated themselves, whatever their division. ¹²All the Levites who were singers, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun with their sons and relatives, were standing east of the altar, dressed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres. With them were 120 priests blowing trumpets. ¹³The trumpeters and the singers joined as one, making a single sound heard as they praised and thanked the LORD. As they raised the sound with trumpets, cymbals and other musical instruments and praised the LORD, “For he is good; his loyal love lasts forever,” the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, ¹⁴and the priests were unable to stand and do their service because of the cloud, since the house of God was full of the glory of the LORD.