1 Kings 5; 1 Kings 6; 2 Chronicles 2; 2 Chronicles 3

1 Hiram king of Tyre sent ambassadors to Solomon when he heard that he had been crowned king in David's place. Hiram had loved David his whole life.

2 Solomon responded, saying,

3 "You know that David my father was not able to build a temple in honor of God because of the wars he had to fight on all sides, until God finally put them down.

4 But now God has provided peace all around - no one against us, nothing at odds with us.

5 "Now here is what I want to do: Build a temple in honor of God, my God, following the promise that God gave to David my father, namely, 'Your son whom I will provide to succeed you as king, he will build a house in my honor.'

6 And here is how you can help: Give orders for cedars to be cut from the Lebanon forest; my loggers will work alongside yours and I'll pay your men whatever wage you set. We both know that there is no one like you Sidonians for cutting timber."

7 When Hiram got Solomon's message, he was delighted, exclaiming, "Blessed be God for giving David such a wise son to rule this flourishing people!"

8 Then he sent this message to Solomon: "I received your request for the cedars and cypresses. It's as good as done - your wish is my command.

9 My lumberjacks will haul the timbers from the Lebanon forest to the sea, assemble them into log rafts, float them to the place you set, then have them disassembled for you to haul away. All I want from you is that you feed my crew."

10 In this way Hiram supplied all the cedar and cypress timber that Solomon wanted.

11 In his turn, Solomon gave Hiram 125,000 bushels of wheat and 115,000 gallons of virgin olive oil. He did this every year.

12 And God, for his part, gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised. The healthy peace between Hiram and Solomon was formalized by a treaty.

13 King Solomon raised a workforce of 30,000 men from all over Israel.

14 He sent them in shifts of 10,000 each month to the Lebanon forest; they would work a month in Lebanon and then be at home two months. Adoniram was in charge of the work crew.

15 Solomon also had 70,000 unskilled workers and another 80,000 stonecutters up in the hills

16 - plus 3,300 foremen managing the project and supervising the work crews.

17 Following the king's orders, they quarried huge blocks of the best stone - dressed stone for the foundation of The Temple.

18 Solomon and Hiram's construction workers, assisted by the men of Gebal, cut and prepared the timber and stone for building The Temple.

1 Four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, Solomon started building The Temple of God.

2 The Temple that King Solomon built to God was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high.

3 There was a porch across the thirty-foot width of The Temple that extended out fifteen feet.

4 Within The Temple he made narrow, deep-silled windows.

5 Against the outside walls he built a supporting structure in which there were smaller rooms:

6 The lower floor was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet, and the third floor ten and a half feet. He had projecting ledges built into the outside Temple walls to support the buttressing beams.

7 The stone blocks for the building of The Temple were all dressed at the quarry so that the building site itself was reverently quiet - no noise from hammers and chisels and other iron tools.

8 The entrance to the ground floor was at the south end of The Temple; stairs led to the second floor and then to the third.

9 Solomon built and completed The Temple, finishing it off with roof beams and planks of cedar.

10 The supporting structure along the outside walls was attached to The Temple with cedar beams and the rooms in it were seven and a half feet tall.

11 The word of God came to Solomon saying,

12 "About this Temple you are building - what's important is that you live the way I've set out for you and do what I tell you, following my instructions carefully and obediently. Then I'll complete in you the promise I made to David your father.

13 I'll personally take up my residence among the Israelites - I won't desert my people Israel."

14 Solomon built and completed The Temple.

15 He paneled the interior walls from floor to ceiling with cedar planks; for flooring he used cypress.

16 The thirty feet at the rear of The Temple he made into an Inner Sanctuary, cedar planks from floor to ceiling - the Holy of Holies.

17 The Main Sanctuary area in front was sixty feet long.

18 The entire interior of The Temple was cedar, with carvings of fruits and flowers. All cedar - none of the stone was exposed.

19 The Inner Sanctuary within The Temple was for housing the Chest of the Covenant of God.

20 This Inner Sanctuary was a cube, thirty feet each way, all plated with gold. The Altar of cedar was also gold-plated.

21 Everywhere you looked there was pure gold: gold chains strung in front of the gold-plated Inner Sanctuary

22 - gold everywhere - walls, ceiling, floor, and Altar. Dazzling!

23 Then he made two cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, from olivewood. Each was fifteen feet tall.

24 The outstretched wings of the cherubim (they were identical in size and shape) measured another fifteen feet. He placed the two cherubim, their wings spread, in the Inner Sanctuary. The combined wingspread stretched the width of the room, the wing of one cherub touched one wall, the wing of the other the other wall, and the wings touched in the middle.

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28 The cherubim were gold plated.

29 He then carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and flower blossoms on all the walls of both the Inner and the Main Sanctuary.

30 And all the floors of both inner and outer rooms were gold plated.

31 He constructed doors of olivewood for the entrance to the Inner Sanctuary; the lintel and doorposts were five-sided.

32 The doors were also carved with cherubim, palm trees, and flowers, and then covered with gold leaf.

33 Similarly, he built the entrance to the Main Sanctuary using olivewood for the doorposts but these doorposts were four-sided.

34 The doors were of cypress, split into two panels, each panel swinging separately.

35 These also were carved with cherubim, palm trees, and flowers, and plated with finely hammered gold leaf.

36 He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stones topped with a course of planed cedar timbers.

37 The foundation for God's Temple was laid in the fourth year in the month of Ziv.

38 It was completed in the eleventh year in the month of Bul (the eighth month) down to the last detail, just as planned. It took Solomon seven years to build it.

1 Solomon gave orders to begin construction on the house of worship in honor of God and a palace for himself.

2 Solomon assigned 70,000 common laborers, 80,000 to work the quarries in the mountains, and 3,600 foremen to manage the workforce.

3 Then Solomon sent this message to King Hiram of Tyre: "Send me cedar logs, the same kind you sent David my father for building his palace.

4 I'm about to build a house of worship in honor of God, a holy place for burning perfumed incense, for setting out holy bread, for making Whole-Burnt-Offerings at morning and evening worship, and for Sabbath, New Moon, and Holy Day services of worship - the acts of worship required of Israel.

5 "The house I am building has to be the best, for our God is the best, far better than competing gods.

6 But who is capable of building such a structure? Why, the skies - the entire cosmos! - can't begin to contain him. And me, who am I to think I can build a house adequate for God - burning incense to him is about all I'm good for!

7 I need your help: Send me a master artisan in gold, silver, bronze, iron, textiles of purple, crimson, and violet, and who knows the craft of engraving; he will supervise the trained craftsmen in Judah and Jerusalem that my father provided.

8 Also send cedar, cypress, and algum logs from Lebanon; I know you have lumberjacks experienced in the Lebanon forests. I'll send workers to join your crews

9 to cut plenty of timber - I'm going to need a lot, for this house I'm building is going to be absolutely stunning - a showcase temple!

10 I'll provide all the food necessary for your crew of lumberjacks and loggers: 130,000 bushels of wheat, 120,000 gallons of wine, and 120,000 gallons of olive oil."

11 Hiram king of Tyre wrote Solomon in reply: "It's plain that God loves his people - he made you king over them!"

12 He wrote on, "Blessed be the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, and who gave King David a son so wise, so knowledgeable and shrewd, to build a temple for God and a palace for himself.

13 I've sent you Huram-Abi - he's already on his way - he knows the construction business inside and out.

14 His mother is from Dan and his father from Tyre. He knows how to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, in purple, violet, linen, and crimson textiles; he is also an expert engraver and competent to work out designs with your artists and architects, and those of my master David, your father.

15 "Go ahead and send the wheat, barley, olive oil, and wine you promised for my work crews.

16 We'll log the trees you need from the Lebanon forests and raft them down to Joppa. You'll have to get the timber up to Jerusalem yourself."

17 Solomon then took a census of all the foreigners living in Israel, using the same census-taking method employed by his father. They numbered 153,600.

18 He assigned 70,000 of them as common laborers, 80,000 to work the quarries in the mountains, and 3,600 as foremen to manage the work crews.

1 So Solomon broke ground, launched construction of the house of God in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, the place where God had appeared to his father David. The precise site, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, had been designated by David.

2 He broke ground on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his rule.

3 These are the dimensions that Solomon set for the construction of the house of God: ninety feet long and thirty feet wide.

4 The porch in front stretched the width of the building, that is, thirty feet; and it was thirty feet high.

5 He paneled the main hall with cypress and veneered it with fine gold engraved with palm tree and chain designs.

6 He decorated the building with precious stones and gold from Parvaim.

7 Everything was coated with gold veneer: rafters, doorframes, walls, and doors. Cherubim were engraved on the walls.

8 He made the Holy of Holies a cube, thirty feet wide, long, and high. It was veneered with 600 talents (something over twenty-two tons) of gold.

9 The gold nails weighed fifty shekels (a little over a pound). The upper rooms were also veneered in gold.

10 He made two sculptures of cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, for the Holy of Holies, both veneered with gold.

11 The combined wingspread of the side-by-side cherubim (each wing measuring seven and a half feet) stretched from wall to wall, thirty feet.

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13 They stood erect facing the main hall.

14 He fashioned the curtain of violet, purple, and crimson fabric and worked a cherub design into it.

15 He made two huge free-standing pillars, each fifty-two feet tall, their capitals extending another seven and a half feet.

16 The top of each pillar was set off with an elaborate filigree of chains, like necklaces, from which hung a hundred pomegranates.

17 He placed the pillars in front of The Temple, one on the right, and the other on the left. The right pillar he named Jakin (Security) and the left pillar he named Boaz (Stability).