Solomon Builds the Temple

3 Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had designated, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.^(A)

David’s Altar and Sacrifice

¹⁸ Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David that he should go up and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.^(A)

¹⁴ So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide,”^[a] as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”^[b]

² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”^(A)

22 ¹ Then David said, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”^(A)

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites 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.^{(A) 2} The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.^{(B) 3} The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits wide, across the width of the house. Its depth was ten cubits in front of the house. ⁴ For the house he made windows with recessed frames.^{[a](C) 5} He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary, and he made side chambers all around.^{(D) 6} The lowest story^[b] was five cubits wide, the middle one was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide, 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 The house was built with stone finished at the quarry so that neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple while it was being built.^(E)

⁸ The entrance for the lower^[c] story was on the south side of the house: one went up by winding stairs to the middle story and from the middle story to the third. ⁹ So he built the house and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar.^{(F) 10} He built the structure against the whole house, each story^[d] five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.

¹¹ Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, ¹² “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you that I made to your father David.^{(G) 13} I will dwell among the Israelites and will not forsake my people Israel.”^(H)

¹⁴ So Solomon built the house and finished it.^(I)

David’s Altar on the Threshing Floor

¹⁸ That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”^{(A) 19} Following Gad’s instructions, David went up, as the Lord had commanded. ²⁰ When Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming toward him, and Araunah went out and prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground. ²¹ Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so that the plague may be averted from the people.”^{(B) 22} Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him; here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.^{(C) 23} All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God respond favorably to you.”^(D)

²⁴ But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy them from you for a price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.^{(E) 25} David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. So the Lord answered his supplication for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.^(F)