Solomon Builds the Temple

6 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. ² The house which King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. ³ The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house. ⁴ And he made for the house windows with recessed frames. ⁵ He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running round the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all around. ⁶ The lowest story^[a] was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad; for around the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.

⁷ When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry; so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple, while it was being built.

⁸ The entrance for the lowest^[b] story was on the south side of the house; and one went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.