2 Chronicles 1

1 Solomon, son of David, strengthened his hold on the kingdom, for the LORD, his God, was with him, constantly making him more renowned.
2 He sent a summons to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, the judges, the princes of all Israel, and the family heads;
3 and, accompanied by the whole assembly, he went to the high place at Gibeon, because the meeting tent of God, made in the desert by Moses, the LORD'S servant, was there.
4 (The ark of God, however, David had brought up from Kiriath-jearim to Jerusalem, where he had provided a place and pitched a tent for it.)
5 The bronze altar made by Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, he put in front of the LORD'S Dwelling on the high place. There Solomon and the assembly consulted the LORD,
6 and Solomon offered sacrifice in the LORD'S presence on the bronze altar at the meeting tent; he offered a thousand holocausts upon it.
7 That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, Make a request of me, and I will grant it to you.
8 Solomon answered God: You have shown great favor to my father David, and you have allowed me to succeed him as king.
9 Now, LORD God, may your promise to my father David be fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
10 Give me, therefore, wisdom and knowledge to lead this people, for otherwise who could rule this great people of yours?
11 God then replied to Solomon: Since this has been your wish and you have not asked for riches, treasures and glory, nor for the life of those who hate you, nor even for a long life for yourself, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge in order to rule my people over whom I have made you king,
12 wisdom and knowledge are given you; but I will also give you riches, treasures and glory, such as kings before you never had, nor will those have them who come after you.
13 Solomon returned to Jerusalem from the high place at Gibeon, from the meeting tent, and became king over Israel.
14 He gathered together chariots and drivers, so that he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand drivers he could station in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.
15 The king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stones, while cedars became as numerous as the sycamores of the foothills.
16 Solomon also imported horses from Egypt and Cilicia. The king's agents would acquire them by purchase from Cilicia,
17 and would then bring up chariots from Egypt and export them at six hundred silver shekels, with the horses going for a hundred and fifty shekels. At these rates they served as middlemen for all the Hittite and Aramean kings. (18) Solomon gave orders for the building of a house to honor the LORD and also of a house for his own royal estate.

2 Chronicles 2

1 He conscripted seventy thousand men to carry stone and eighty thousand to cut the stone in the mountains, and over these he placed three thousand six hundred overseers.
2 Moreover, Solomon sent this message to Huram, king of Tyre: As you dealt with my father David, sending him cedars to build a house for his dwelling, so deal with me.
3 I intend to build a house for the honor of the LORD, my God, and to consecrate it to him, for the burning of fragrant incense in his presence, for the perpetual display of the showbread, for holocausts morning and evening, and for the sabbaths, new moons, and festivals of the LORD, our God: such is Israel's perpetual obligation.
4 And the house I intend to build must be large, for our God is greater than all other gods.
5 Yet who is really able to build him a house, since the heavens and even the highest heavens cannot contain him? And who am I that I should build him a house, unless it be to offer incense in his presence?
6 Now, send me men skilled at work in gold, silver, bronze and iron, in purple, crimson, and violet fabrics, and who know how to do engraved work, to join the craftsmen who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David appointed.
7 Also send me boards of cedar, cypress and cabinet wood from Lebanon, for I realize that your servants know how to cut the wood of the Lebanon. My servants will labor with yours
8 in order to prepare for me a great quantity of wood, since the house I intend to build must be lofty and wonderful.
9 I will furnish as food for your servants, the hewers who cut the wood, twenty thousand kors of wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, twenty thousand measures of wine, and twenty thousand measures of oil.
10 Huram, king of Tyre, wrote an answer which he sent to Solomon: Because the LORD loves his people, he has placed you over them as king.
11 He added: Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, for having given King David a wise son of intelligence and understanding, who will build a house for the LORD and also a house for his royal estate.
12 I am now sending you a craftsman of great skill, Huram-abi,
13 son of a Danite woman and of a father from Tyre; he knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze and iron, with stone and wood, with purple, violet, fine linen and crimson, and also how to do all kinds of engraved work and to devise every type of artistic work that may be given him and your craftsmen and the craftsmen of my lord David your father.
14 And now, let my lord send to his servants the wheat, barley, oil and wine which he has promised.
15 For our part, we will cut trees on Lebanon, as many as you need, and float them down to you at the port of Joppa, whence you may take them up to Jerusalem.
16 Thereupon Solomon took a census of all the alien men who were in the land of Israel (following the census David his father had taken of them), who were found to number one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred.
17 Of these he made seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to keep the people working.
18 (OMITTED TEXT)

2 Chronicles 3

1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, which had been pointed out to his father David, on the spot which David had selected, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
2 He began to build in the second month of the fourth year of his reign.
3 These were the specifications laid down by Solomon for building the house of God: the length was sixty cubits according to the old measure, and the width was twenty cubits;
4 the porch which lay before the nave along the width of the house was also twenty cubits, and it was twenty cubits high. He overlaid its interior with pure gold.
5 The nave he overlaid with cypress wood which he covered with fine gold, embossing on it palms and chains.
6 He also decorated the building with precious stones.
7 The house, its beams and thresholds, as well as its walls and its doors, he overlaid with gold, and he engraved cherubim upon the walls. (The gold was from Parvaim.)
8 He also made the room of the holy of holies. Its length corresponded to the width of the house, twenty cubits, and its width was also twenty cubits. He overlaid it with fine gold to the amount of six hundred talents.
9 The weight of the nails was fifty gold shekels. The upper chambers he likewise covered with gold.
10 For the room of the holy of holies he made two cherubim of carved workmanship, which were then overlaid with gold.
11 The wings of the cherubim spanned twenty cubits:
12 one wing of each cherub, five cubits in length, extended to a wall of the building, while the other wing, also five cubits in length, touched the corresponding wing of the second cherub.
13 The combined wingspread of the two cherubim was thus twenty cubits. They stood upon their own feet, facing toward the nave.
14 He made the veil of violet, purple, crimson and fine linen, and had cherubim embroidered upon it.
15 In front of the building he set two columns thirty-five cubits high; the capital topping each was of five cubits.
16 He worked out chains in the form of a collar with which he encircled the capitals of the columns, and he made a hundred pomegranates which he set on the chains.
17 He set up the columns to correspond with the nave, one for the right side and the other for the left, and he called the one to the right Jachin and the one to the left Boaz.

2 Chronicles 4

1 Then he made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.
2 He also made the molten sea. It was perfectly round, ten cubits in diameter, five in depth, and thirty in circumference;
3 below the rim a ring of figures of oxen encircled the sea, ten to the cubit, all the way around; there were two rows of these cast in the same mold with the sea.
4 It rested on twelve oxen, three facing north, three west, three south, and three east, with their haunches all toward the center; the sea rested on their backs.
5 It was a handbreadth thick, and its brim was made like that of a cup, being lily-shaped. It had a capacity of three thousand measures.
6 Then he made ten basins for washing, placing five of them to the right and five to the left. Here were cleansed the victims for the holocausts; but the sea was for the priests to wash in.
7 He made the lampstands of gold, ten of them as was prescribed, and placed them in the nave, five to the right and five to the left.
8 He made ten tables and had them set in the nave, five to the right and five to the left; and he made a hundred golden bowls.
9 He made the court of the priests and the great courtyard and the gates of the courtyard; the gates he overlaid with bronze.
10 The sea was placed off to the southeast from the right side of the temple.
11 Huram also made the pots, the shovels and the bowls. Huram thus completed the work he had to do for King Solomon in the house of God:
12 two columns, two nodes for the capitals topping these two columns, and two networks covering the nodes of the capitals topping the columns;
13 also four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, with two rows of pomegranates to each network, to cover the two nodes of the capitals topping the columns.
14 He made the stands, and the basins on the stands;
15 one sea, and the twelve oxen under it;
16 likewise the pots, the shovels and the forks. Huram-abi made all these articles for King Solomon from polished bronze for the house of the LORD.
17 The king had them cast in the Jordan region, in the clayey ground between Succoth and Zeredah.
18 Solomon made all these vessels, so many in number that the weight of the bronze was not ascertained.
19 Solomon had all these articles made for the house of God: the golden altar, the tables on which the showbread lay,
20 the lampstands and their lamps of pure gold which were to burn according to prescription before the sanctuary,
21 flowers, lamps and gold tongs (this was the purest gold),
22 snuffers, bowls, cups and firepans of pure gold. As for the entry to the house, its inner doors to the holy of holies, as well as the doors to the nave, were of gold.