“Now then, I am sending Huram-abi, a skilled man, endowed with understanding,

the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father, who knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, violet, linen, and crimson fabrics, and who knows how to make all kinds of engravings and to execute any design which is assigned to him, to work with your skilled workers and with those of my lord, your father David.

Now then, let my lord send his servants wheat and barley, oil and wine, of which he has spoken.

We will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you as rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may carry it up to Jerusalem.”

Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, following the census which his father David had taken; and 153,600 were found.

He appointed seventy thousand of them to carry loads and eighty thousand to quarry stones in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to make the people work.

The Temple Construction in Jerusalem

Then 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 prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

He began to build on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

Dimensions and Materials of the Temple

Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for building the house of God. The length in cubits, according to the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the width, twenty cubits.

Further, he overlaid the house with precious stones; and the gold was gold from Parvaim.

Then he made the room of the Most Holy Place: its length across the width of the house was twenty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He also overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

Then he made two sculptured cherubim in the room of the Most Holy Place and overlaid them with gold.

The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet facing the main room.

He made chains in the inner sanctuary and placed them on the tops of the pillars; and he made a hundred pomegranates and placed them on the chains.

He also made the Sea of cast metal, ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits and its circumference thirty cubits.

Now figures like oxen were under it and all around it, ten cubits, entirely encircling the Sea. The oxen were in two rows, cast in one piece.

It was standing on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east; and the Sea was set on top of them and all their hindquarters turned inward.

He also made ten basins in which to wash, and he set five on the right side and five on the left to rinse things for the burnt offering; but the Sea was for the priests to wash in.

Then he made the ten golden lampstands in the way prescribed for them, and he set them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left.

He also made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left. And he made a hundred golden bowls.

He put the Sea on the right side of the house toward the southeast.

Huram also made the pails, the shovels, and the bowls. So Huram finished the work that he did for King Solomon in the house of God:

He also made the stands and he made the basins on the stands,

and the one Sea with the twelve oxen under it.