²⁸ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not ^(A)first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

¹⁷ At the king's command ^(A)they quarried out great, costly stones in order to lay the foundation of the house with dressed stones. ¹⁸ So Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders and ^(B)the men of Gebal did the cutting and prepared the timber and the stone to build the house.

⁷ When the house was built, ^(A)it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.