Solomon begins to build

3 Then Solomon began to build the Lord's temple in Jerusalem. He built it on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had shown himself to his father David.^[a] David had prepared a place for the temple there, at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.^{[b] 2} Solomon began to build the temple on the second day of the second month of the fourth year that he ruled Israel as king.^[c]

³ The foundation for God's temple was 27 metres long and 9 metres wide. (They measured it in cubits.)

⁴ There was an entrance room at the front of the temple's big hall. It was as wide as the temple, 9 metres wide. It was 9 metres high.^[d] Solomon's workers covered the inside of the entrance room with pure gold.

⁵ They covered the walls inside the big hall with boards of cypress wood. Then they covered the boards with pure gold. They drew pictures of palm trees and chains on the walls. ⁶ They used valuable stones to make the temple beautiful. The gold that they used came from Parvaim. ⁷ They used gold to cover all parts of the temple: the beams for its roof, the entrances, the walls and the doors. They cut pictures of cherubs on the walls.

The Most Holy Place in the temple

⁸ Solomon's workers built the Most Holy Place in the temple. It was 9 metres long and 9 metres wide. That was how wide the temple itself was. They used about 20,000 kilograms of pure gold to cover its walls. ⁹ The gold nails weighed the same as 50 gold coins. They also covered the walls of the upstairs rooms with gold.

¹⁰ In the Most Holy Place, they made models of two cherubs. They covered them with gold. ^11-13 The cherubs stood side by side in the Most Holy Place. Their faces looked towards the big hall. Each cherub had two wings. Each wing was 2.2 metres long. They held their wings out so that one wing of each cherub touched a wing of the other cherub. The other wing of each cherub touched a wall of the Most Holy Place. The four wings of the two cherubs reached across 9 metres.

¹⁴ Solomon's workers used blue, purple and red material and good linen to make a special curtain. It had pictures of cherubs on it.

The two pillars

¹⁵ Solomon's workers made two pillars to stand at the front of the temple. They were 16 metres high.^[e] There was a piece on the top of each pillar that was 2.2 metres high.

¹⁶ They made images of chains around the top pieces of the pillars. They also made 100 images of pomegranates among the chains. ¹⁷ Then they put the two pillars at the entrance of the temple. One pillar stood on the south side of the entrance. The other pillar stood on the north side. Solomon called the pillar on the south side ‘Jakin’. He called the pillar on the north side ‘Boaz’.^[f]