51 Now Hiram, king of Tyre, hearing that Solomon had been made king in place of his father, sent his servants to him; for Hiram had ever been a friend to David. 2 And Solomon sent back word to Hiram, saying, 3 You have knowledge that David my father was not able to make a house for the name of the Lord his God, because of the wars which were round him on every side, till the Lord put all those who were against him under his feet. 4 But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side; no one is making trouble, and no evil is taking place. 5 And so it is my purpose to make a house for the name of the Lord my God, as he said to David my father, Your son, whom I will make king in your place, will be the builder of a house for my name. 6 So now, will you have cedar-trees from Lebanon cut down for me, and my servants will be with your servants; and I will give you payment for your servants at whatever rate you say; for it is common knowledge that we have no such wood-cutters among us as the men of Zidon. 7 And these words of Solomon made Hiram glad, and he said, Now may the Lord be praised who has given to David a wise son to be king over this great people. 8 Then Hiram sent to Solomon, saying; The words you sent have been given to me: I will do all your desire in the question of cedar-wood and cypress-wood. 9 My men will take them down from Lebanon to the sea, where I will have them corded together to go by sea to whatever place you say, and I will have them cut up there so that you may take them away; as for payment, it will be enough if you give me food for my people.
10 So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar-wood and cypress-wood he had need of; 11 And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of grain, as food for his people, and twenty measures of clear oil; this he did every year. 12 Now the Lord had given Solomon wisdom, as he had said to him; and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made an agreement together. 13 Then King Solomon got together men for the forced work through all Israel, thirty thousand men in number; 14 And sent them to Lebanon in bands of ten thousand every month: for a month they were working in Lebanon and for two months in their country, and Adoniram was in control of them. 15 Then he had seventy thousand for the work of transport, and eighty thousand stone-cutters in the mountains; 16 In addition to the chiefs of the responsible men put by Solomon to oversee the work, three thousand and three hundred in authority over the workmen. 17 By the king's orders great stones, stones of high price, were cut out, so that the base of the house might be made of squared stone. 18 Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did the work of cutting them, and put edges on them, and got the wood and the stone ready for the building of the house.
61 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year that Solomon was king of Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, the building of the Lord's house was started. 2 The house which Solomon made for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 3 The covered way before the Temple of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and ten cubits wide in front of the house. 4 And for the house he made windows, with network across. 5 And against the walls all round, and against the walls of the Temple and of the inmost room, he put up wings, with side rooms all round: 6 The lowest line of them being five cubits wide, the middle six cubits wide and the third seven cubits; for there was a space all round the outside walls of the house so that the boards supporting the rooms did not have to be fixed in the walls of the house. 7 (And the stones used in the building of the house were squared at the place where they were cut out; there was no sound of hammer or axe or any iron instrument while they were building the house.) 8 The door to the lowest side rooms was in the right side of the house; and they went up by twisting steps into the middle rooms, and from the middle into the third. 9 So he put up the house and made it complete, roofing it with boards of cedar-wood. 10 And he put up the line of side rooms against the walls of the house, fifteen cubits high, resting against the house on boards of cedar-wood.
11 (And the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying, 12 About this house which you are building: if you will keep my laws and give effect to my decisions and be guided by my rules, I will give effect to my word which I gave to David your father. 13 And I will be ever among the children of Israel, and will not go away from my people. 14 So Solomon made the building of the house complete.)
15 The walls of the house were covered inside with cedar-wood boards; from the floor to the roof of the house they were covered inside with wood; and the floor was covered with boards of cypress-wood. 16 And at the back of the house a further space of twenty cubits was shut in with boards of cedar-wood, for the inmost room. 17 And the house, that is, the Temple, in front of the holy place was forty cubits long. 18 (All the inside of the house was cedar-wood, ornamented with designs of buds and flowers; no stonework was to be seen inside.) 19 And he made ready an inmost room in the middle of the house, in which to put the ark of the agreement of the Lord. 20 And the inmost room was twenty cubits square and twenty cubits high, plated over with clear gold, and he made an altar of cedar-wood, plating it with gold. 21 Solomon had all the inside of the house covered with gold, and he put chains of gold across in front of the inmost room, which itself was covered with gold. 22 Plates of gold were put all through the house till it was covered completely (and the altar in the inmost room was all covered with gold). 23 In the inmost room he made two winged beings of olive-wood, ten cubits high; 24 With outstretched wings five cubits wide; the distance from the edge of one wing to the edge of the other was ten cubits. 25 The two winged ones were ten cubits high, of the same size and form. 26 The two of them were ten cubits high. 27 These were placed inside the inner house, their outstretched wings touching the walls of the house, one touching one wall and one the other, while their other wings were touching in the middle. 28 These winged ones were plated over with gold. 29 And all the walls of the house inside and out were ornamented with forms of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers. 30 And the floor of the house was covered with gold, inside and out. 31 For the way into the inmost room he made doors of olive-wood, the arch and the door supports forming a five-sided opening. 32 On the olive-wood doors were cut designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, all of them, with the doors, plated with gold. 33 Then he made pillars of olive-wood for the way into the Temple; the pillars were square: 34 And two folding doors of cypress-wood, with two leaves. 35 These were ornamented with designs of winged ones and palm-trees and open flowers, plated over with gold. 36 And the inner space was walled with three lines of squared stones and a line of cedar-wood boards. 37 In the fourth year the base of the house was put in its place, in the month Ziv. 38 And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, the building of the house was complete in every detail, as it had been designed. So he was seven years building it.
21 Now it was Solomon's purpose to put up a house for the name of the Lord and a house for himself as king. 2 And Solomon had seventy thousand men numbered for transport, and eighty thousand for cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers. 3 And Solomon sent to Huram, king of Tyre, saying, As you did for my father David, sending him cedar-trees for the building of his house, 4 See! I am building a house for the name of the Lord my God, to be made holy to him, where perfumes of sweet spices will be burned before him, and the holy bread will be placed at all times, and burned offerings will be offered morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts of the Lord our God. This is a law for ever to Israel. 5 And the house which I am building is to be great, for our God is greater than all gods. 6 But who may have strength enough to make a house for him, seeing that the heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be his resting-place? who am I then to make a house for him? But I am building it only for the burning of perfume before him. 7 So now send me an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron? in purple and red and blue, and in the cutting of all sorts of ornament, to be with the expert workmen who are here in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom my father David got together. 8 And send me cedar-trees, cypress-trees and sandal-wood from Lebanon, for, to my knowledge, your servants are expert wood-cutters in Lebanon; and my servants will be with yours, 9 To get trees for me in great numbers, for the house which I am building is to be great and a wonder. 10 And I will give as food to your servants, the wood-cutters, twenty thousand measures of grain, and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand measures of wine and twenty thousand measures of oil.
11 Then Huram, king of Tyre, sent Solomon an answer in writing, saying, Because of his love for his people the Lord has made you king over them. 12 And Huram said, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, maker of heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, full of wisdom and good sense, to be the builder of a house for the Lord and a house for himself as king. 13 And now I am sending you a wise and expert man, Huram who is as my father, 14 The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a man of Tyre, an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron, in stone and wood, in purple and blue and fair linen and red, trained in the cutting of every sort of ornament and the invention of every sort of design; let him be given a place among your expert workmen and those of my lord, your father David. 15 So now let my lord send to his servants the grain and the oil and the wine as my lord has said; 16 And we will have wood cut from Lebanon, as much as you have need of, and will send it to you on flat boats by sea to Joppa, and from there you may take it up to Jerusalem. 17 Then Solomon took the number of all the men from strange lands who were living in Israel, as his father David had done; there were a hundred and fifty-three thousand, six hundred. 18 Seventy thousand he put to the work of transport, eighty thousand to cutting stone in the mountains, and three thousand, six hundred as overseers to put the people to work.
31 Then Solomon made a start at building the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where the Lord had been seen by his father David, in the place which David had made ready in the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 The building was started in the second month in the fourth year of his rule. 3 And Solomon put the base of the house of God in position; by the older measure it was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. 4 And the covered way in front of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and a hundred and twenty cubits high, all plated inside with the best gold. 5 And the greater house was roofed with cypress-wood, plated with the best gold and ornamented with designs of palm-trees and chains. 6 And the house was made beautiful with stones of great value, and the gold was gold of Parvaim. 7 All the house was plated with gold, the supports, the steps, the walls and the doors; and the walls were ornamented with designs of winged ones. 8 And he made the most holy place; it was twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits wide, like the greater house, and was plated all over with the best gold; six hundred talents were used for it. 9 And fifty shekels weight of gold was used for the nails. He had all the higher rooms plated with gold.
10 And in the most holy place he made images of two winged beings, covering them with gold. 11 Their outstretched wings were twenty cubits across; one wing, five cubits long, touching the wall of the house, and the other, of the same size, meeting the wing of the other winged one. 12 And in the same way, the wings of the other, five cubits long, were stretched out, one touching the wall and the other meeting the wing of the first winged one. 13 Their outstretched wings were twenty cubits across; they were placed upright on their feet, facing the inner part of the house. 14 And he made the veil of blue and purple and red, of the best linen, worked with winged ones.
15 And in front of the house he made two pillars, thirty-five cubits high, with crowns on the tops of them, five cubits high. 16 And he made chains, like neck ornaments, and put them on the tops of the pillars, and a hundred apples on the chains. 17 He put up the pillars in front of the Temple, one on the right side and one on the left, naming the one on the right Jachin and that on the left Boaz.
