1 Kings - Chapter 6

¹ In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began building the Temple of Yahweh.

² The temple which King Solomon built for Yahweh was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and twenty-five high.

³ The portico in front of the Hekal of the Temple was twenty cubits long across the width of the Temple and ten cubits wide along the length of the Temple.

⁴ He made windows for the Temple with frames and latticework.

⁵ He also built an annex against the Temple wall, right round the Hekal and Debir. He built lateral storeys all round;

⁶ the lowest lateral storey was five cubits wide, the middle one six cubits, and the third seven cubits, for he had made the outside of the Temple wall correspondingly stepped back all round, so that the annex was not attached to the Temple walls.

⁷ (The building of the Temple was done with quarry -- dressed stone; no sound of hammer or pick or any iron tool was to be heard in the Temple while it was being built.)

⁸ The entrance to the lowest storey was at the right-hand corner of the Temple; access to the middle storey was by a spiral staircase, and so from the middle storey to the third.

⁹ Having finished building the Temple, he roofed the Temple with a coffered ceiling of cedar wood.

¹⁰ Round the outside of the Temple he then built the annex which was five cubits high and was joined to the Temple by cedar-wood beams.

¹¹ And the word of Yahweh came to Solomon,

¹² 'With regard to this temple which you are now building, if you follow my statutes and obey my ordinances and faithfully follow my commandments, I shall fulfil the promise which I made about you to your father David.

¹³ And I shall make my home among the Israelites and never forsake Israel my people.'

¹⁴ Solomon finished building the Temple.

¹⁵ He lined the inside of the Temple walls with panels of cedar wood-panelling them on the inside from the floor of the Temple to the beams of the ceiling -- and laid the floor of the Temple with juniper planks.

¹⁶ The twenty cubits measured from the end of the Temple he built of cedar planks from the floor to the beams, and this part was reserved as the Debir, the Holy of Holies.

¹⁷ The Temple measured forty cubits -- the Hekal -- in front of the Debir.

¹⁸ There was cedar wood round the inside of the Temple, ornamentally carved with gourds and rosettes; all was cedar wood, with no stone showing.

¹⁹ In the inner part of the Temple he designed a Debir, to contain the ark of the covenant of Yahweh.

²⁰ The Debir was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty high, and he overlaid it on the inside with pure gold. He made an altar of cedar wood

²¹ in front of the Debir and overlaid it with gold.

²² He overlaid the whole Temple with gold, the whole Temple entirely.

²³ In the Debir he made two great winged creatures of wild-olive wood. . .It was ten cubits high.

²⁴ One winged creature's wing was five cubits long and the other wing five cubits: ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip.

²⁵ The other winged creature also measured ten cubits; both had the same measurements and the same shape.

²⁶ The height of one was the same as the other's.

²⁷ He placed them in the middle of the inner chamber; their wings were spread out so that the wing of one touched one of the walls and the wing of the other touched the other wall, while their wings met in the middle of the chamber wing to wing.

²⁸ And he overlaid them with gold.

²⁹ All round the Temple walls he carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees and rosettes, both inside and outside.

³⁰ He overlaid the floor of the Temple with gold, both inside and outside.

³¹ He made the door of the Debir with uprights of wild-olive wood, and door jambs with five indented sections,

³² and the two leaves of wild-olive wood. He carved figures of great winged creatures, palm trees and rosettes which he overlaid with gold, and he gilded winged creatures and palm trees.

³³ Similarly, he made uprights of wild-olive wood for the door of the Hekal, and door jambs with four indented sections,

³⁴ and the two leaves of juniper: one leaf had two ribs binding it, and the other had two ribs binding it.

³⁵ He carved winged creatures, palm trees and rosettes, which he overlaid with gold laid evenly over the carvings.

³⁶ He built the wall of the inner court in three courses of dressed stone and one course of cedar beams.

³⁷ In the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, the foundations of the Temple were laid;

³⁸ in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul -- that is, the eighth month -- the Temple was completed exactly as it had been planned and designed. Solomon took seven years to build it.

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