Beginning

2 ¶ And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the LORD and a house for his kingdom.

² And Solomon counted seventy thousand men to bear burdens and eighty thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.

³ And Solomon sent to Hiram, the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David, my father, sending him cedars to build himself a house to dwell in, even so deal with me.

⁴ Behold, I must build a house unto the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate it to him and to burn aromatic incense before him and for the continual showbread and for the burnt offerings morning and evening on the sabbaths and on the new moons and on the solemn feasts of the LORD our God, which is to be perpetual in Israel.

⁵ And the house which I must build is great, for great is our God above all gods.

⁶ But who is so powerful as to build him a house, seeing the heavens and heavens of the heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then that I should build him a house, except to burn incense before him?

⁷ Send me now, therefore, a wise man who knows how to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in iron and in purple and crimson and blue and that knows how to engrave figures with the craftsmen that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David, my father, provided.

⁸ Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and pine trees, out of Lebanon, for I know that thy slaves are skillful at cutting timber in Lebanon, and, behold, my slaves shall be with thy slaves

⁹ to prepare me timber in abundance, for the house which I am about to build shall be great and wonderful.

¹⁰ And, behold, I will give to thy slaves, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of oil.

¹¹ ¶ Then Hiram, the king of Tyre, answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the LORD has loved his people, he has placed thee as king over them.

¹² Hiram said, moreover, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, that made the heavens and the earth, who has given to King David a wise son with knowledge, good sense and understanding, that he might build a house for the LORD and a house for his kingdom.

¹³ And now I have sent a wise man, with knowledge and understanding, of Hiram my father,

¹⁴ the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, in fine linen, and in crimson; also to engrave any manner of figure and to invent any design which shall be put to him, with thy craftsmen and with the craftsmen of my lord David, thy father.

¹⁵ Now, therefore, let my lord send unto his slaves the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which he has spoken of;

¹⁶ and we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as thou shalt need, and we will bring it to thee in rafts by sea to Joppa, and thou shalt cause it to be carried up to Jerusalem.

¹⁷ And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after David, his father, had already numbered them; and one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred were found.

¹⁸ And he set seventy thousand of them to be bearers of burdens and eighty thousand to be hewers in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people work.

3 ¶ Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in the Mount Moriah which had been shown unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan, the Jebusite.

² And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.

³ Now these are the measurements on which Solomon founded the building of the house of God. The first measurement was the length of sixty cubits and the breadth of twenty cubits.

⁴ And the porch that was in the front of the length was of twenty cubits, according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the height was one hundred and twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold.

⁵ And the greater house he covered with fir wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and set thereon palm trees and chains.

⁶ And he also covered the house with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was gold of Parvaim.

⁷ Thus did he cover the house, its beams, its posts, its walls, and its doors, with gold and engraved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ And he made the house of the holy of holies, its length was twenty cubits, according to the breadth of the house, and its breadth was twenty cubits, and he covered it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.

⁹ And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

¹⁰ ¶ And inside the house of the holy of holies he made two cherubim of figured work and overlaid them with gold.

¹¹ And the wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits long; one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was likewise five cubits, reaching to the wing of the other cherub.

¹² And one wing of the other cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house; and the other wing was five cubits also, joining to the wing of the other cherub.

¹³ The wings of these cherubim spread themselves forth twenty cubits, and they stood on their feet, and their faces were inward.

¹⁴ And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen and wrought cherubim thereon.

¹⁵ Also he made in front of the house two pillars of thirty-five cubits high, and the chapiter that was on the top of each of them was five cubits.

¹⁶ And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads of the pillars and made one hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.

¹⁷ And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand and the other on the left, and called the name of the one on the right hand Jachin, {Heb. The LORD establishes} and the name of the one on the left Boaz. {Heb. Only in Him is there strength}

4 ¶ Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.

² He also made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, entirely round and five cubits high; and a line of thirty cubits girded it round about.

³ And under it were figures of oxen, which did compass it round about, ten in each cubit, compassing the sea round about. Two orders of oxen were cast, when it was cast.

⁴ It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north and three looking toward the west and three looking toward the Negev and three looking toward the east; and the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.

⁵ And the thickness of it was a handbreadth and the brim of it like the work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies, and it received and held three thousand baths.

⁶ He also made ten lavers and put five on the right hand and five on the left, to wash in them; they cleansed the work of the burnt offering in them; but the sea was for the priests to wash in.

⁷ And he made ten lampstands of gold according to their form, and set them in the temple, five on the right hand, and five on the left.

⁸ He also made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right hand and five on the left. And he made one hundred basins of gold.

⁹ Furthermore, he made the court of the priests and the great court and doors for the court and overlaid the doors of them with brass.

¹⁰ And he set the sea on the right side towards the east, over against the Negev.

¹¹ ¶ And Hiram made the pots and the shovels and the basins. And Hiram finished the work, that he had been making for King Solomon for the house of God,

¹² Two pillars and the pommels and the chapiters, which were on the top of the two pillars, and the two networks to cover the two pommels of the chapiters which were on the top of the pillars;

¹³ four hundred pomegranates on the two networks; two orders of pomegranates on each network, to cover the two pommels of the chapiters which were upon the pillars.

¹⁴ He also made the bases upon which he placed the lavers;

¹⁵ one sea, and twelve oxen under it;

¹⁶ and the pots and the shovels and the fleshhooks and all their vessels, did Hiram, his father, make to King Solomon for the house of the LORD of the purest brass.

¹⁷ In the plain of the Jordan did the king cast them, in clay of the ground, between Succoth and Zeredathah.

¹⁸ Thus Solomon made all these vessels in great abundance, for the weight of the brass could not be found out.

¹⁹ And Solomon made all the vessels that were for the house of God, the golden altar also, and the tables upon which the showbread was set;

²⁰ likewise, the lampstands with their lamps, that they should burn according to the ordinance before the oracle, of pure gold;

²¹ and the flowers and the lamps and the tongs, he made of gold, of perfect gold;

²² also the snuffers and the basins and the spoons and the censers, of pure gold. Regarding the entry of the house, its inner doors for the most holy place and the doors of the house of the temple, were of gold.

5 ¶ Thus all the work that Solomon made for the house of the LORD was finished, and Solomon brought in all the things that David his father had dedicated; and the silver and the gold and all the vessels, he put among the treasures of the house of God.

² Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the families of the sons of Israel, unto Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion.

³ Therefore, all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king in the solemnity which was in the seventh month.

⁴ And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark.

⁵ And they brought up the ark and the tabernacle of the testimony and all the vessels of the sanctuary that were in the tabernacle; these did the priests and the Levites bring up.

⁶ Also King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel that were assembled unto him before the ark sacrificed sheep and oxen, which could not be told nor numbered for multitude.

⁷ And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim.

⁸ For the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its staves from above.

⁹ And they drew out the staves so that the ends of the staves of the ark could be seen before the oracle, but they could not be seen from outside. And they were there unto this day.

¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tables which Moses put in it at Horeb, with which the LORD had cut a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt.

¹¹ ¶ And when the priests came out of the sanctuary (for all the priests that were present were sanctified and did not then wait by course,

¹² and the Levite singers, all of those of Asaph, those of Heman, and those of Jeduthun, together with their sons and their brethren, being clothed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets).

¹³ And they sounded the trumpets and sang with one voice, all together as one man praising and thanking the LORD, when they lifted up their voice with trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, when they praised the LORD, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endures for ever; and the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD,

¹⁴ so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.