1 Kings 6

¹ In the 480th year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he built the house of the LORD.

² The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

³ The portico in front of the sanctuary of the house was twenty cubits long, across the width of the house, and ten cubits wide, projecting in front of the house.

⁴ He made windows with fixed lattices for the house.

⁵ Along the walls of the house he built a gallery all around, enclosing the walls of the house, both the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary, and he made side chambers all around.

⁶ The lower gallery was five cubits wide, the middle one six cubits wide, and the third seven cubits wide, because he made recesses on the outside of the house all around so that the beams would not be fastened into the walls of the house.

⁷ When the house was being built, it was made of stone already prepared at the quarry. No hammer, axe, or any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built.

⁸ The entrance to the middle chamber was on the right side of the house. A winding staircase led up to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.

⁹ So he built the house and finished it, then covered it with cedar beams and boards.

¹⁰ He built the gallery around the whole house, five cubits high, and fastened it to the house with cedar timbers.

¹¹ The word of the LORD came to Solomon:

¹² “As for this house you are building: if you walk according to my decrees, carry out my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill for you the promise I made to David your father.

¹³ I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel.”

¹⁴ Solomon built the house and finished it.

¹⁵ He lined the inside walls of the house with cedar boards. From the floor of the house to the ceiling beams, he covered the interior with wood, and he covered the floor with cypress boards.

¹⁶ He built off the back of the house a section twenty cubits long, from the floor to the ceiling beams, with cedar boards, and fitted it inside as the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷ The house, that is, the sanctuary in front, was forty cubits long.

¹⁸ The cedar inside the house was carved with gourds and open flowers. It was all cedar; no stone could be seen.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner sanctuary inside the house to place the ark of the covenant of the LORD there.

²⁰ The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He covered it with pure gold, and he covered the altar with cedar.

²¹ Solomon covered the interior of the house with pure gold, stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, and covered it with gold.

²² He covered the entire house with gold, until the whole house was completely covered, and he covered with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

²³ In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high.

²⁴ One wing of a cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing was five cubits long: ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other.

²⁵ The second cherub was also ten cubits. The two cherubim had the same size and shape.

²⁶ One cherub was ten cubits high, and the second cherub was the same.

²⁷ He placed the cherubim inside the house. Their wings were spread out so that one cherub’s wing touched one wall, and the second cherub’s wing touched the other wall; their wings in the middle of the house touched one another.

²⁸ He covered the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ On all the walls of the house, all around, he carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, on the inside and the outside.

³⁰ He covered the floor of the house with gold, both inside and outside.

³¹ For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts occupied one fifth of the opening.

³² On the two olive wood doors he carved figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and covered them with gold, applying the gold over the cherubim and the palm trees.

³³ In the same way, for the entrance to the sanctuary he made olive wood doorposts that occupied one fourth of the opening,

³⁴ and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of one door folded, and the two leaves of the other door folded.

³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and covered them with gold, carefully fitted over the carved work.

³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of cedar beams.

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

³⁸ and in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the house was finished in every detail and according to the entire design. He built it in seven years.

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