Every agreement has conditions. Here The Lord lays down a few simple conditions. He knows that these people, like us, will fall into sin. Then they need only to “humbly pray and turn back.” The Lord will forgive them. But if the people don’t return and choose to worship other gods, then the Lord will abandon them.
These are not harsh conditions. We can’t double-cross our friends and expect to keep them. God proves himself to be your best possible friend.
Don’t put anything in his place.
2 Chronicles 7:12-33
The Lord Appears to Solomon Again…
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.
Suppose I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people, if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again. I will watch over this Temple and be ready to hear all the prayers that are offered here, because I have chosen it and consecrated it as the place where I will be worshipped forever. I will watch over it and protect it for all time.
If you serve me faithfully as your father David did, obeying my laws and doing everything I have commanded you, I will keep the promise I made to your father David when I told him that Israel would always be ruled by his descendants.
But if you and your people ever disobey the laws and commands I have given you and worship other gods, then I will remove you from the land that I gave you, and I will abandon this Temple that I have consecrated as the place where I am to be worshipped. People everywhere will ridicule it and treat it with contempt. “The Temple is now greatly honoured, but then everyone who passes by it will be amazed and will ask, ‘Why did the LORD do this to this land and this Temple?’ People will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They gave their allegiance to other gods and worshipped them. That is why the LORD has brought this disaster on them.’ “
