Solomon builds the temple

3 Solomon began to build the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord^[a] had appeared to his father David, on the place David had prepared at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ² He began building in the second month^[b] of the fourth year of his rule. ³ Solomon laid the foundations^[c] for these structures in order to build the temple of God. The length according to the old standard of measurement was ninety feet and the width thirty feet. ⁴ Across the front of the temple^[d] was a porch as long as the temple was and thirty feet wide, and thirty feet^[e] high. He covered the inside walls with pure gold. ⁵ He paneled the walls of the main room with pine, covered them with fine gold, and decorated them with palm trees and chains. ⁶ He studded the room with precious stones for beauty; the gold was from Parvaim. ⁷ He covered the room, its beams, doorframes, walls, and doors with gold, and carved images of winged creatures on the walls. ⁸ Then he made the most holy place. It was as long as the temple was wide, thirty feet long and thirty feet wide. He covered it with six hundred kikkars of fine gold. ⁹ The gold nails weighed fifty shekels.^[f] He also covered the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰ In the most holy place he formed two statues of winged creatures and covered them with gold. ¹¹ Together the wingspan of these creatures was thirty feet. One of the first creature’s wings was seven and a half feet long and touched the temple wall, while the other wing was seven and a half feet long, touching the wing of the other creature. ¹² Similarly, one wing of the other creature was seven and a half feet long and touched the temple wall, while the other wing was seven and a half feet long and touched the other creature. ¹³ The wings of these creatures extended thirty feet. They stood on their feet facing the main room.

¹⁴ Then he made the curtain out of fine linen and violet, purple, and crimson yarn, weaving winged creatures into it. ¹⁵ Then he made two columns in front of the temple, fifty-two and a half feet high, with a seven and a half foot cap on top of each. ¹⁶ Then he made chains like a necklace^[g] and placed them on the tops of the columns. He made a hundred pomegranates and placed them into the chains. ¹⁷ Then he set up the pillars in front of the sanctuary, one on the south, the other on the north. The one on the south he named Jachin, and the one on the north he named Boaz.

Solomon’s temple equipment

4 He^[h] also made a bronze altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and fifteen feet high. ² Then he made a tank of cast metal called the Sea. It was circular in shape, fifteen feet from rim to rim, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet in circumference. ³ Under the rim were two rows of oxlike figures completely encircling it, ten every eighteen inches, each cast in its mold. ⁴ The Sea rested on twelve oxen with their backs toward the center, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. ⁵ The Sea was as thick as the width of a hand. Its rim was shaped like a cup or an open lily blossom. It could hold three thousand baths.^{[i] 6} He also made ten washbasins and put five on the south and five on the north. The items used for the entirely burned offerings were rinsed in these. The priests washed in the Sea. ⁷ He made ten gold lampstands as prescribed and put them in the sanctuary, five on the south and five on the north. ⁸ He also made ten tables and put them in the sanctuary, five on the south and five on the north, as well as a hundred gold bowls. ⁹ He made the courtyard of the priests and the great courtyard, with doors covered with bronze for the courtyard. ¹⁰ He placed the Sea at the southeast corner.

¹¹ Huram made the pots, the shovels, and the bowls. So Huram finished all his work on God’s temple for King Solomon:

All the things that Huram-abi made for King Solomon for the Lord’s temple were made of polished bronze. ¹⁷ The king cast them in clay molds in the Jordan Valley between Succoth and Zarethan.^{[l] 18} Due to the very large number of objects, Solomon didn’t even try to weigh the bronze. ¹⁹ Solomon also made all the equipment for God’s temple: the gold altar; the tables for the bread of the presence; ²⁰ the lampstands with their lamps, all of pure gold, to burn before the inner sanctuary as prescribed; ²¹ the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of pure gold; ²² and the wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers of pure gold. As for the temple entrance, the inner doors to the most holy place as well as the doors to the main hall were made of gold.