Plans for Building the Temple^(A)

2 Now Solomon wanted to build a temple for the name of the Lord and a royal house for his kingship. ² And Solomon designated seventy thousand men to carry materials, eighty thousand men to cut stone in the hills, and three thousand six hundred supervisors to oversee these men.

³ And Solomon sent word to Hiram^[a] king of Tyre saying,

“As you did for David my father and sent him cedar trees in order to build for himself a house in which to dwell, so deal with me. ⁴ I am going to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God, sanctified for Him, for making sacrifices before Him, and for incense of fragrant spices, and for the continual showbread, for burnt offerings on both morning and evening, and for Sabbaths, New Moons, and appointed feasts of the Lord our God, as an ordinance forever for Israel.

⁵ “And the house that I am building will be great because our God is greater than all other gods. ⁶ But who is able to build a house for Him, since the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I that I build a house for Him, except to make offerings before Him?

⁷ “Now may you send to me a wise man who works with gold, silver, bronze, iron, and in purple, crimson, and violet threads and knows how to engrave, who will be with the skilled workers and me in Judah and Jerusalem, which David my father established.

⁸ “And may you send me trees of cedar, cypress, and algum from Lebanon because I realize that your slaves know how to cut timber in Lebanon; and my servants will be alongside your servants, ⁹ to prepare an abundance of timber for me, because the temple that I will build will be great and marvelous. ¹⁰ I will provide for the woodsmen, your servants who cut timber, twenty thousand dry kors^[b] of crushed wheat, twenty thousand kors^[c] of barley, twenty thousand liquid baths^[d] of wine, and twenty thousand liquid baths of oil.”