2 Chronicles 2:2–18:34

²And Solomon assigned seventy thousand men to bear burdens^c and eighty thousand quarriers^d in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred men to supervise them. ³And Solomon sent word to Huram^e king of Tyre, saying, “As you have dealt with David my father and sent cedar to him to build for himself a house in which to live, please deal with me. ⁴Look, I am building a house for the name of Yahweh my God to dedicate to him, to offer sweet spices of incense before him, and for the regular rows of bread, and burnt offerings for mornings, evenings, Sabbaths, and new moon festivals, and for appointed feasts of Yahweh our God which are everlasting for Israel. ⁵And the house that I am building will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. ⁶Now who indeed has adequate strength to build a house for him? For the heavens and the highest heavens^f are not able to contain him. Now who am I that I would build a house for him, except to burn incense before him? ⁷So then, send to me skilled men to work with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and with purple, crimson, and blue fabric, knowledgeable in engraving, with the skilled men who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father has established. ⁸Send me trees of cedar, cypress, and algum from Lebanon, for I myself know that your servants are knowledgeable in cutting the trees of Lebanon. Now see, my servants will be with your servants ⁹to prepare trees in abundance for me, for the house that I am building will be great and wonderful. ¹⁰Now see, I will provide twenty thousand dry measures of crushed wheat, twenty thousand dry measures of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil to the woodcarvers and those who cut timber.”

¹¹Then Huram^g king of Tyre answered in a letter, and he sent word to Solomon: “Because Yahweh loves his people, he has made you king over them.” ¹²Then Huram^h said, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who has made the heavens and the earth, who has given to King David a wise son knowing discretion and understanding, who will build for Yahweh a house and a royal palace for himself. ¹³So now I have sent a skilled man, knowledgeable and with understanding: my masterⁱ Huram, ¹⁴a son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, knowledgeable for working with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and with purple, blue, and crimson fabric, and with fine linen, for engraving any engraving and devising any plan that is given to him, with your skilled men and the skilled men of my lord David your father. ¹⁵Now as for the wheat, barley, oil, and wine that my lord mentioned, let him send that to his servants. ¹⁶And we ourselves will cut trees from Lebanon according to all your need, and we will bring them to you on rafts over the sea to Joppa, so that you may bring them up to Jerusalem.”

¹⁷Then Solomon counted all the resident alien men who were in the land of Israel after the census that David his father had taken of them. And there were found one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred. ¹⁸And he appointed from them seventy thousand to bear burdens,^j eighty thousand to quarry^k in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people work.

Solomon Builds the Temple

3Then Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had established, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ²And he began to build in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³Now these were the measurements of Solomon for building the house of God: the length in cubits by the former measurement was sixty cubits, and the width was twenty cubits. ⁴The length of the portico that was in front was the same as the front of the width of the house:^a twenty cubits. And its height was one hundred and twenty cubits. And he overlaid it on the inside with pure gold. ⁵And the great house itself he covered with cypress wood, then he overlaid it with pure gold. And he put on it palm tree images and ornate chains. ⁶Then he overlaid the house with precious stone as decoration. (Now the gold was the gold of Parvaim.) ⁷And he overlaid the house with gold—the beams, the thresholds, the walls, and the doors. And he carved cherubim upon the walls. ⁸Then he made the most holy place.^b Its length was equal to^c the width of the house: twenty cubits. And its breadth was twenty cubits. And he overlaid it with six hundred talents of fine gold. ⁹And the weight for the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid its upper rooms with gold. ¹⁰And he made two sculpted wood cherubim in the most holy place,^d and he overlaid them with gold. ¹¹The length of the outstretched wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits; one wing of five cubits touched the wall of the house, and the other wing of five cubits was touching the outstretched wing of the other cherub. ¹²And the wing of five cubits of the other cherub was touching the wall of the house, and its other wing five cubits long touching the wing of the first^e cherub. ¹³The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits, and they were standing on their feet, their faces toward the house. ¹⁴And he made the curtain of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen, and put cherubim on it. ¹⁵And at the front of the house he made two columns, thirty-five cubits high, and the capital on their top was five cubits. ¹⁶And he made decorative chains in the inner sanctuary and put them on top of the columns. And he made one hundred pomegranate ornaments, and put them on the chains. ¹⁷And he erected the columns in front of the temple, one on the south and one on the north. He called the name of the southern one Jakin, and the name of the northern one Boaz.

The Furnishings of Solomon’s Temple

4And he made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits was its length, and twenty cubits was its width, and ten cubits was its height. ²Then he made the sea of molten metal, from brim to brim it was ten cubits, completely round. And it was five cubits in height, and its circumference measured^a thirty cubits. ³Under it were figures of oxen all around it, ten cubits high, encircling the sea all around. The oxen were in two rows cast as one piece with it.^{b 4}It was standing upon twelve oxen, three facing north, and three facing west, and three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set upon them from above, and all their hindquarters faced inward.^{c 5}And its thickness was a handbreadth, and its brim was like the working of the lip of a cup, the blossom of a lily. And it held three thousand baths. ⁶And he made ten basins. And he set five on the south and five on the north in which to wash; they washed off the work of the burnt offering in them, but the sea was for the priests to wash therein. ⁷And he made ten golden lampstands according to their custom, and he set them in the temple, five on the south and five on the north. ⁸And he made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south and five on the north. And he made a hundred drinking bowls of gold. ⁹And he made the courtyard of the priests and the great outer courtyard and the doors for the outer court. And he overlaid their doors with bronze. ¹⁰And he set the sea at the southeast corner of the temple. ¹¹And Huram^d made the pots, the shovels, and the drinking bowls. So Hiram^e finished making the work that he made on the house of God for King Solomon: ¹²the two columns, the bowls, and the two capitals on top of the columns, and the two latticeworks to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on top of the columns, ¹³and the four hundred pomegranates for the two latticeworks, two rows of pomegranates for the latticework, to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were before the columns. ¹⁴And he made the water carts, and he made the basins on the water carts, ¹⁵and the one sea and the twelve oxen underneath it.

¹⁶And Huram-abi made for King Solomon the pots, the shovels, the three-pronged meat forks, and all the utensils of polished bronze for the house of Yahweh. ¹⁷The king cast them in the plain of the Jordan, in the clay soil between Succoth and Zeredah. ¹⁸Solomon made all these utensils in great abundance, for the weight of the bronze could not be determined. ¹⁹So Solomon made all the objects that were in the house of God: the altar of gold; the tables upon which was the bread of the presence; ²⁰the lampstands, and the lamps for burning according to the custom before the inner sanctuary, of solid gold; ²¹and the blossoms, the lamps, and the tongs that were of solid gold; ²²and the snuffers, the drinking bowls, the dishes, and the firepans, of solid gold; and the entrance to the house, the inner doors to the most holy place, and the doors to the house of the temple were of gold.

The Ark Installed in the Temple

5When all the work that Solomon did for the house of Yahweh was finished, Solomon brought the holy objects of David his father: the silver, the gold, and all the objects he had put into the storehouses of the house of God. ²Then Solomon assembled all the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the families^a for the Israelites,^b to Jerusalem in order to bring up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh from the city of David, which is Zion. ³And all the men of Israel assembled before the king at the feast that is in the seventh month. ⁴And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. ⁵And they brought up the ark, the tent of assembly,^c and all the holy objects that were in the tent; the Levitical priests brought them up. ⁶And King Solomon and the whole community of Israel that was assembled before him were before the ark, sacrificing sheep and cattle that could not be counted nor numbered for abundance. ⁷Then the priests brought up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, into…