⁴ Go and say to David my servant, The Lord says, You are not to make me a house for my living-place:

² Then David the king got up and said, Give ear to me, my brothers and my people; it was my desire to put up a house, a resting-place for the ark of the Lord's agreement, and for the foot-rest of our God; and I had got material ready for the building of it.

³ But God said to me, You are not to be the builder of a house for my name, because you are a man of war and have taken life;

⁴ Now that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying,

⁵ Go and say to my servant David, The Lord says, Are you to be the builder of a house, a living-place for me?

¹⁹ But you yourself will not be the builder of my house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

⁷ And David said to Solomon, My son, it was my desire to put up a house for the name of the Lord my God.

⁸ But the word of the Lord came to me saying, You have taken lives without number and made great wars; I will not let you be the builder of a house for my name, because of the lives you have taken on the earth before my eyes.

⁸ But the Lord said to David my father, You did well to have in your heart the desire to make a house for my name:

⁹ But you yourself will not be the builder of the house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

⁸ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, or your ways my ways, says the Lord.

⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

³³ O how deep is the wealth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! no one is able to make discovery of his decisions, and his ways may not be searched out.

³⁴ Who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord? or who has taken part in his purposes?