The Temple Built and Furnished^(A)

3 Solomon began to build the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to his father David. There David had prepared the site on the threshing floor ^[a] of Ornan the Jebusite. ² He began to build on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³ This is how Solomon laid the foundation to build God’s temple. It was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. (They used the old standard measurement.) ⁴ The entrance hall in front of ⌞the main room⌟ was 30 feet wide (the same as the width of the temple) and 30 feet high. He covered its inside walls with pure gold. ⁵ He paneled the larger building with cypress, overlaid it with fine gold, and decorated it with ⌞designs in the form of⌟ palm trees and chains. ⁶ He covered the building with gems to beautify it and used gold from Parvaim. ⁷ He also overlaid the building, the rafters, the threshold, the walls, and the doors with gold, and he carved angels ^[b] into the walls.

⁸ He made the most holy place. It was as long as the temple was wide, 30 feet long. It was also 30 feet wide. He overlaid it with 45,000 pounds of fine gold. ⁹ The gold nails weighed 20 ounces. He also overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰ In the most holy place he made two sculptured angels and covered them with gold. ¹¹ The combined length of the angels’ wings was 30 feet. A wing of one of the angels was 7½ feet long and touched the wall of the building. Its other wing was 7½ feet long and touched one wing of the other. ¹² The wing of the other one of the angels was 7½ feet long and touched the other wall of the building. Its other wing was 7½ feet long and touched the wing of the first. So the angels’ combined wingspan was 30 feet. ¹³ They stood on their feet and faced the main hall. ¹⁴ Solomon made the canopy of violet, purple, and dark red cloth and of linen and decorated it with angels.

¹⁵ He made two pillars for the front of the temple. They were 53 feet long, and the capital on each pillar was 7½ feet ⌞high⌟. ¹⁶ He made chains for the inner room and ⌞also⌟ put them on the capitals. He made 100 pomegranates and put them on the chains. ¹⁷ He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and the other on the left. He named the one on the right Jachin [He Establishes] and the one on the left Boaz [In Him Is Strength].

4 He made a bronze altar 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 15 feet high.

² Huram made a pool from cast metal. It was 15 feet in diameter. It was round, 7½ feet high, and had a circumference of 45 feet. ³ Under the rim were two rows of figurines shaped like bulls all around the 45-foot circumference of the pool. They were cast in metal when the pool was cast. ⁴ The pool was set on 12 metal bulls. Three bulls faced north, three faced west, three faced south, and three faced east. The pool was set on them, and their hindquarters were toward the center ⌞of the pool⌟. ⁵ The pool was three inches thick. Its rim was like the rim of a cup, shaped like a lily’s bud. It held 18,000 gallons.

⁶ Huram also made ten basins for washing and put five on the south side and five on the north side. The priests rinsed the meat prepared for the burnt offerings in them. They used the pool to wash themselves.

⁷ Huram made ten gold lamp stands according to their specifications and put them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north side. ⁸ He made ten tables and put them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north side. And he made 100 gold bowls.

⁹ He also made the priests’ courtyard and the large courtyard and its doors. He covered the doors with bronze. ¹⁰ He set the pool on the south side in the southeast ⌞corner⌟. ¹¹ Huram also made the pots, shovels, and bowls.

So Huram finished the work for King Solomon in God’s temple: ¹² 2 pillars, bowl-shaped capitals on top of the 2 pillars, and 2 sets of filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars, ¹³ 400 pomegranates for the 2 sets of filigree (2 rows of pomegranates for each filigree to cover the 2 bowl-shaped capitals on the pillars), ¹⁴ 10 stands and 10 ^[c] basins on the stands, ¹⁵ 1 pool and the 12 bulls under it, ¹⁶ pots, shovels, and three-pronged forks. Huram made all of them out of polished bronze for the Lord’s temple at King Solomon’s request. ¹⁷ The king cast them in foundries in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zeredah. ¹⁸ Solomon made so many of these products that no one tried to determine how much the bronze weighed.

¹⁹ Solomon made all the furnishings for God’s temple: the gold altar, the gold tables on which the bread of the presence was placed, ²⁰ lamp stands and lamps of pure gold (to burn as directed in front of the inner room), ²¹ flowers, lamps, pure gold tongs, ²² snuffers, basins, dishes, incense burners of pure gold, the gold entrance to the temple, the gold doors of the inner ⌞room⌟ (the most holy place), and the gold doors of the temple.