Beginning

Solomon builds the temple^[a]

6 Solomon began to build the Lord's temple 480 years after the Israelites had left Egypt. It was in the fourth year that he had ruled Israel as king. He started the work in the month called Ziv, the second month of the year.^[b]

² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 27 metres long. It was 9 metres wide. It was 13.5 metres high. ³ The temple had an entrance room in front of its big hall. The entrance room was as wide as the temple, 9 metres wide. It came 4.5 metres out from the front of the temple itself. ⁴ Solomon made narrow windows near the tops of the temple walls.^{[c] 5} Solomon built rooms around the outside of the temple walls. These rooms continued outside the big hall and the inside room. The side rooms were on three levels.^{[d] 6} The lowest level of rooms was 2.3 metres wide. The middle level was 2.7 metres wide and the top level was 3.2 metres wide. Each floor was built on wooden beams. The beams rested on stones in the temple walls, so that there were no holes that they cut into the walls.

⁷ When they built the temple, they used stones that were the right shape. Workers had already cut the stones at the place where they came from. There was no sound of hammers, axes or any iron tools at the place of the temple. ⁸ The door to the lowest level of rooms on the sides of the temple was on the south side of the temple. Stairs went up to the middle level and to the top level.^[e]

⁹ Solomon finished building the temple. He made the roof with wooden beams and with cedar boards. ¹⁰ He also built the rooms around the sides of the temple. Each room was 2.3 metres high. Cedar beams fixed the rooms to the temple building.

¹¹ Then the Lord gave this message to Solomon:

¹² ‘I will make my home in this temple that you are building. I will do everything for you that I promised to your father David. But you must obey my laws, rules and commands. ¹³ Then I will live among my people, the Israelites. I will never leave them.’

¹⁴ So Solomon finished building the temple. ¹⁵ He used cedar boards to cover the walls on the inside of the temple. The boards went from the floor of the temple up to its ceiling. He covered the floor of the temple with wood from pine trees. ¹⁶ He built a wall across the inside of the temple to make a separate room. That wall was 9 metres from the back wall of the temple. The inside room was the Most Holy Place.^[f] The walls were covered with cedar boards from the floor to the ceiling. ¹⁷ The big hall in front of the Most Holy Place was 18 metres long. ¹⁸ The inside of the temple was covered with boards made of cedar wood. The workers cut pictures of fruits and flowers on the wood. The cedar boards completely covered the stone walls, so you could not see any stone.

¹⁹ Solomon prepared the inside room to be the Most Holy Place where they would put the Lord's Covenant Box. ²⁰ The inside room was 9 metres long, 9 metres wide and 9 metres high. Solomon used pure gold to cover the walls of this room. He also covered the cedar altar with gold. ²¹ Solomon covered all the walls inside the temple with gold. He also hung gold chains across the entrance to the Most Holy Place. He covered everything there with gold. ²² So he covered everything inside the whole temple with gold. That included the altar that was inside the Most Holy Place.

²³ Solomon used olive wood to make models of two cherubs to stand in the Most Holy Place. Each cherub was 4.4 metres tall. ²⁴ The first cherub had two wings that were 2.2 metres long each. So it was 4.4 metres from the end of one wing to the end of the other wing. ²⁵ The second cherub was also 4.4 metres across its wings. The two cherubs were the same size and the same shape. ²⁶ Each cherub was 4.4 metres high. ²⁷ Solomon put the cherubs in the inside room of the temple. Their wings went from one wall of the temple to the other wall. One cherub's wing touched one wall of the temple. One of the other cherub's wings touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. ²⁸ Solomon covered the cherubs with gold.

²⁹ Solomon's workers cut pictures in the wood on the walls of the big hall and the inside room. They were pictures of cherubs, palm trees and flowers. ³⁰ They also covered the floors of both the rooms with gold. ³¹ They used olive wood to make doors for the entrance to the Most Holy Place. The doors were fixed to wooden pillars which had five sides. ³² The wooden doors had pictures of cherubs, palm trees and flowers. Solomon covered the pictures of the cherubs and the palm trees with very thin gold. ³³ The doors to the big hall of the temple were fixed to pillars made of olive wood. Those pillars had four sides. ³⁴ Solomon also made two doors from pine wood. Each door had two separate parts that could turn. ³⁵ He cut pictures of cherubs, palm trees and flowers on those doors too. He covered them with gold in the same way.

³⁶ Solomon also built a yard around the temple building. The wall around the yard had three rows of special stones, then a row of cedar beams, and so on.

³⁷ They built the foundation of the Lord's temple in the fourth year that Solomon was king. It was in the month called Ziv. ³⁸ They finished building the temple in the 11th year that Solomon was king. It was the eighth month, the month called Bul. So they built the temple in seven years, exactly as the plans showed that it should be.

Solomon builds his palace

7 Solomon was also building a palace for himself. After 13 years, he finished it.^{[g] 2} He built the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon.^[h] It was 46 metres long, 23 metres wide and 14 metres high. It had four rows of pillars. On top of them were beams. They used cedar wood to make the pillars and the beams. ³ They also used cedar wood to make the roof. They put the roof on top of the pillars and the beams. There were 45 beams, with 15 beams in each row. ⁴ There were three rows of windows on each side of the room. They were opposite each other, in groups of three windows. ⁵ All the doors had square corners and four sides. There were three doors in each group.

⁶ Solomon also built a Hall of Pillars. It was 23 metres long and 14 metres wide. There was an entrance room at the front of the hall. The entrance room also had pillars and a roof.

⁷ Solomon also built a Throne Room. He covered the walls with cedar boards, from the floor to the ceiling. He called it the Hall of Justice. He judged people's arguments in that room.

⁸ Solomon also built a house for himself to live in. It was in a yard behind the Hall of Justice. It was like the other buildings. He also built a house like it for his wife who was the king of Egypt's daughter.

⁹ Solomon's workers used valuable, large stones to make all the buildings, from the front to the great yard that was behind. They cut the stones to the right size and shape with special saws. They used these stones for the foundations and all the way up to the roof.

¹⁰ They made the foundations with very large, valuable stones. The stones were 3.5 metres or 4.5 metres long. ¹¹ On top of the foundation they used the best stones that they cut to the right size. They also used beams of cedar wood. ¹² There was a wall around the great yard. This had three rows of special stones, then a row of cedar beams, and so on. It was like the wall around the yard of the Lord's temple and the entrance room.

More work on the temple

¹³ King Solomon sent men to Tyre to fetch a man called Hiram. ¹⁴ Hiram was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali.^[i] His father was a worker who knew how to use bronze to make things. He lived in Tyre. Hiram also had special skills. He knew how to use bronze to make many kinds of things. So he came to work for King Solomon. He did all the work that Solomon asked him to do.

¹⁵ Hiram made two bronze pillars. Each pillar was 8.2 metres high and 5.5 metres around the outside. The metal itself was about 7 centimetres thick. ¹⁶ He also used bronze to make a top for each pillar. Each piece was 2.3 metres high. ¹⁷ Each piece had pictures like rows of chains that joined together. There were seven pictures like this on the top of each pillar. ¹⁸ Hiram also made pictures of two rows of pomegranates around the chains. They covered the tops of the pillars. ¹⁹ The tops of the two pillars were in the shape of flowers called lilies. Each one was 1.8 metres high. ²⁰ There were pictures of 200 pomegranates in two rows all around the top of each pillar. They were next to the chains above the round shape at the top of the pillar.

²¹ Hiram put these two pillars at the entrance room of the temple, in front of the big hall, the hall of pillars in the temple. He called the pillar on the south side ‘Jakin’. He called the pillar on the north side ‘Boaz’. ²² The tops of the pillars were in the shape of flowers called lilies. Hiram finished the work on the two bronze pillars.

²³ Hiram also used bronze to make a big bath which they called ‘the Sea’.^[j] It was in the shape of a circle 4.5 metres across. It was 2.3 metres deep. It was 14 metres around the outside. ²⁴ All around its edge, below the top, there were two rows of round shapes. They were pictures of fruits called gourds. They were all part of the same piece of bronze as ‘the Sea’. There were 20 gourds for every metre around the edge. ²⁵ Hiram fixed ‘the Sea’ on top of 12 bronze bulls. Three pointed north, three pointed west, three pointed south and three pointed east. Their backs were towards the middle of ‘the Sea’. ²⁶ The walls of ‘the Sea’ were 7½ centimetres thick. Its top edge was like a cup in the shape of a lily flower. ‘The Sea’ contained about 40,000 litres of water.

²⁷ Hiram also made ten bronze carts to carry water.^[k] Each one was 1.8 metres long, 1.8 metres wide and 1.3 metres deep. ²⁸ This is how he made the water carts: He made them with bronze sides, which he fixed to bronze bars at the edges. ²⁹ There were pictures of lions, bulls and cherubs on the bars and on the edges. There were shapes like leaves above and below the lions and the bulls. ³⁰ Each cart had four bronze wheels fixed to bronze axles.^[l] The axles were fixed under each cart at four places. These places had shapes like leaves on each side. ³¹ On the top of the cart there was a round piece which held a bowl. This piece was 50 centimetres deep and 75 centimetres across. Hiram cut pictures into the metal all around it. The bronze sides of the carts were square. They were not round.

³² There were four wheels under each cart. They were fixed to axles. The axles and the cart joined together in one piece. Each wheel was 70 centimetres high. ³³ The wheels were like the wheels of a chariot. Hiram used bronze to make the axles and all the parts of the wheels.^{[m] 34} Each cart had four handles. There was one handle on each side, joined to the cart as one piece. ³⁵ There was a piece of metal round the top of each cart. It was 23 centimetres deep. It was fixed at each corner of the cart with pieces of bronze. These pieces and the sides of each cart were all joined together. ³⁶ Hiram cut pictures of cherubs, lions and palm trees on the sides of each cart and on the handles. He cut pictures where there was a space for them. There were also shapes of leaves all around. ³⁷ Hiram used bronze to make the ten carts so that they all had the same size and shape.

³⁸ And Hiram also made ten bronze buckets. Each bucket contained about 800 litres. Each bucket was 1.8 metres across. There was one bucket for each of the ten carts. ³⁹ Hiram put five of the carts on the south side of the temple. He put the other five carts on the north side of the temple. He put ‘the Sea’ on the south side of the temple, at the south-east corner.

⁴⁰ Hiram also made dishes to carry ashes, small tools and bowls.

So Hiram finished all the work in the Lord's temple that King Solomon had asked him to do. He made these things:

King Solomon asked Hiram to make all these things for the Lord's temple. Hiram used bright bronze to make all these things. ⁴⁶ The king told his workers to pour the hot bronze into shapes in the ground. They did that at a special place in the region of the Jordan Valley, between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷ Solomon did not weigh any of these things, because there were so many of them. No one ever knew the weight of the bronze.

⁴⁸ Solomon also made all these things for the Lord's temple:

⁵¹ King Solomon finished all the work for the Lord's temple. Then he brought into it all the holy things that belonged to his father, David. He stored all the valuable things in a safe place in the Lord's temple. They included silver things and gold things.