¹It happened, when David was dwelling in his house, that David said to Nathan the prophet, Look, I am dwelling in the house of cedars, and the ark of the covenant of Yahweh is under curtains.

²And Nathan said to David, Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.

³And it was in that night that the word of God came to Nathan, saying:

⁴Go, and say to David my servant, Thus says Yahweh: You will not build the house for me to dwell in.

⁵For I have not dwelled in a house since the day when I brought Israel up until this day, but I have been from tent to tent, and from tabernacle to tabernacle.

⁶Wherever I walked about among all Israel, did I speak a word with any one of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedars?

⁷And now, thus you will say to my servant David, Thus says Yahweh of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from after the flock, to be ruler over my people Israel;

⁸And I was with you wherever you went, and I cut off all your enemies from before your face, and I will make you a name like the name of the great ones who are in the land.

⁹And I will set a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them, and they will dwell in their own place, and they will not be shaken again, and the sons of injustice will not wear them down again, as at the first,

¹⁰and from the days which I commanded judges over my people Israel. And I humbled all your enemies, and I told you that Yahweh will build you a house.

¹¹It will happen, when your days are fulfilled to go with your fathers, that I will raise up your seed after you, who will be one of your sons, and I will establish his kingdom.

¹²He will build for me a house, and I will establish his throne forever.

¹³I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me; and my loyal love I will not remove from him, as I removed it from the one who was before you;

¹⁴I will make him stand in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever.

¹⁵According to all these words and according to all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.

¹⁶And King David came in and dwelled before the face of Yahweh, and said, Who am I, Yahweh God, and who is my house, that you have brought me this far?

¹⁷And this was small in your eyes, God, and you spoke about the house of your slave from afar, and you have seen me in the order of man, the one on the step up, Yahweh God.

¹⁸What more will David add to you for the weightiness of your slave? And you know your slave.

¹⁹Yahweh, for the sake of your slave and according to your heart, you have done all this greatness, to make known all the great deeds.

²⁰Yahweh, there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, in all that we have heard with our ears.

²¹And who is like your people Israel, one nation in the land, whom God went to ransom as a people for himself, to make for you a name of great and awesome things, by driving out nations from the face of your people, whom you ransomed from Egypt?

²²And you made your people Israel a people for yourself forever, and you, Yahweh, became God to them.

²³And now, Yahweh, the word which you spoke over your slave and over his house, let it be established forever, and do just as you spoke.

²⁴And may it stand firm, and may your name become great forever, saying, Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, is God to Israel; and may the house of David your slave be established before your face.

²⁵For you, my God, have uncovered the ear of your slave, to build him a house; therefore your slave has found himself able to pray before your face.

²⁶And now, Yahweh, you are God, and you spoke this good thing concerning your slave.

²⁷And now you have been pleased to bless the house of your slave, to be before your face forever; for you, Yahweh, have blessed, and it is blessed forever.