Psalm 11

For the director of music. Of David.

¹⁵ He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling,^(A) and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper.^{(B) 16} He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.^{(C) 17} The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits^[a] long. ¹⁸ The inside of the temple was cedar,^(D) carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner sanctuary^(E) within the temple to set the ark of the covenant^(F) of the Lord there. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary^(G) was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.^{(H) 21} Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. ²² So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

²³ For the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim^(I) out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. ²⁴ One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. ²⁵ The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. ²⁶ The height of each cherub was ten cubits. ²⁷ He placed the cherubim^(J) inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. ²⁸ He overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ On the walls^(K) all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim,^(L) palm trees and open flowers. ³⁰ He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

³¹ For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary. ³² And on the two olive-wood doors^(M) he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold. ³³ In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made doorframes out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall. ³⁴ He also made two doors out of juniper wood, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. ³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.

³⁶ And he built the inner courtyard^(N) of three courses^(O) of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.

³⁷ The foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. ³⁸ In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details^(P) according to its specifications.^(Q) He had spent seven years building it.

¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you^(A) so that you might go and bear fruit^(B)—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.^{(C) 17} This is my command: Love each other.^(D)

The World Hates the Disciples

¹⁸ “If the world hates you,^(E) keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you^(F) out of the world. That is why the world hates you.^{(G) 20} Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’^[a](H) If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.^(I) If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹ They will treat you this way because of my name,^(J) for they do not know the one who sent me.^{(K) 22} If I had not come and spoken to them,^(L) they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.^{(M) 23} Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works no one else did,^(N) they would not be guilty of sin.^(O) As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law:^(P) ‘They hated me without reason.’^[b](Q)