So let your heart be fully devoted to the LORD our God, as it is this day, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments.”
Parallel translations
- WEB “Let your heart therefore be perfect with Yahweh our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as it is today.”
- KJV Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.
- NKJV Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.”
- NASB Your hearts therefore shall be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.”
- NLT And may you be completely faithful to the Lord our God. May you always obey his decrees and commands, just as you are doing today.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Solomon exhorts the people to be wholly devoted to God, walking in His commandments. It calls for sincere, undivided obedience.
Overview
Solomon urges Israel to have hearts that are 'perfect,' that is, wholly committed to the Lord, keeping His statutes. The proper response to God's faithfulness is whole-hearted devotion. Such complete devotion is perfectly modeled by Christ and made possible for believers by His Spirit.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- 1 Kgs 11:4For when Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and he was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.
- 2 Kgs 20:3“Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before You faithfully and with wholehearted devotion; I have done what was good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
- 1 Kgs 15:14The high places were not removed, but Asa’s heart was fully devoted to the LORD all his days.
- 2 Cor 7:1Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
- Deut 18:13You must be blameless before the LORD your God.
- 1 Kgs 15:3And Abijam walked in all the sins that his father before him had committed, and his heart was not as fully devoted to the LORD his God as the heart of David his forefather had been.
- Job 1:8Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil.”
- 1 Chr 28:9As for you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him wholeheartedly and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands the intent of every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.
- Gen 17:1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless.
- Phil 3:12–16Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
- Ps 37:37Consider the blameless and observe the upright, for posterity awaits the man of peace.
- Job 1:1There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And this man was blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil.
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Christ at the center
Solomon's glory, wisdom, and temple where God's presence dwells are a shadow of the greater Son of David — 'one greater than Solomon is here' — and of the true Temple, Christ himself.
How 1 Kings 8:61 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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