Dual Panel1It was in the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the second month of that year, the month of Ziv, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
2The house which King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long by twenty cubits broad, and its height was thirty cubits.
3The vestibule in front of the sanctuary was twenty cubits long, spanning the whole breadth of the house, while it projected ten cubits in front of the house;
4and he fitted the house with embrasures.
5Then he built a terrace against its wall round both the sanctuary and the inner shrine. He made arcades all round:
6the lowest arcade was five cubits in depth, the middle six, and the highest seven; for he made rebatements all round the outside of the main wall so that the bearer beams might not be fixed into the walls.
7In the building of the house, only blocks of stone dressed at the quarry were used; no hammer or axe or any iron tool whatever was heard in the house while it was being built.
8The entrance to the lowest arcade was in the right-hand corner of the house; there was access by a spiral stairway from that to the middle arcade, and from the middle arcade to the highest.
9So Solomon built the house and finished it, having constructed the terrace five cubits high against the whole building, braced the house with struts of cedar, and roofed it with beams and coffering of cedar.
10(6:9)
11Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying,
12“As for this house which you are building, if you are obedient to my ordinances and conform to my precepts and loyally observe all my commands, then I will fulfil my promise to you, the promise I gave to your father David,
13and I will dwell among the Israelites and never forsake my people Israel.”
14So Solomon built the LORD's house and finished it.
15He panelled the inner walls of the house with cedar boards, covering the interior from floor to rafters with wood; the floor he laid with boards of pine.
16In the innermost part of the house he partitioned off a space of twenty cubits with cedar boards from floor to rafters and made of it an inner shrine, to be the Most Holy Place.
17The sanctuary in front of this was forty cubits long.
18The cedar inside the house was carved with open flowers and gourds; all was cedar, no stone was left visible.
19He prepared an inner shrine in the farthest recesses of the house to receive the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD.
20This inner shrine was twenty cubits square and it stood twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with red gold and made an altar of cedar.
21Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with red gold and drew a veil with golden chains across in front of the inner shrine.
22The whole house he overlaid with gold until it was all covered; and the whole of the altar by the inner shrine he overlaid with gold.
23In the inner shrine he carved two cherubim of wild olive wood, each ten cubits high.
24Each wing of the cherubim was five cubits long, and from wingtip to wingtip was ten cubits.
25Similarly, the second cherub measured ten cubits; the two cherubim were alike in size and shape,
26and each ten cubits high.
27He put the cherubim within the inner shrine and their wings were spread, so that a wing of one cherub touched the wall on one side and a wing of the other touched the wall on the other side, and their other wings met in the middle;
28he overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29Round all the walls of the house he carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, both in the inner chamber and in the outer.
30The floor of the house he overlaid with gold, both in the inner chamber and in the outer.
31At the entrance to the inner shrine he made a double door of wild olive wood; the pilasters and the doorposts were pentagonal.
32The doors were of wild olive, and he carved cherubim, palms, and open flowers on them, overlaying them with gold and hammering the gold upon the cherubim and the palms.
33Similarly for the doorway of the sanctuary he made a square frame of wild olive
34and a double door of pine, each leaf having two swivel-pins.
35On them he carved cherubim, palms, and open flowers, overlaying them evenly with gold over the carving.
36He built the inner court with three courses of dressed stone and one course of lengths of cedar.
37In the fourth year of Solomon's reign, in the month of Ziv, the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid;
38and in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details according to the specification. It had taken seven years to build.