1 Kings 4; 1 Kings 6

1 King Solomon ruled over Israel,

2 and these were his officials: Azariah son of Zadok, priest;

3 Elihoreph and Ahijah the sons of Shisha, secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud, historian;

4 Benaiah son of Jehoiada, in charge of the army; Zadok and Abiathar, priests;

5 Azariah son of Nathan, in charge of the deputies; Zabud son of Nathan, a priest and adviser to the king;

6 Ahishar, in charge of the palace; and Adoniram son of Abda, in charge of forced labor.

7 Solomon had 12 deputies for all Israel. They provided food for the king and his household; each one made provision for one month out of the year.

8 These were their names: Ben-hur, in the hill country of Ephraim;

9 Ben-deker, in Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan;

10 Ben-hesed, in Arubboth (he had Socoh and the whole land of Hepher);

11 Ben-abinadab, in all Naphath-dor (Taphath daughter of Solomon was his wife);

12 Baana son of Ahilud, in Taanach, Megiddo, and all Beth-shean which is beside Zarethan below Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, as far as the other side of Jokmeam;

13 Ben-geber, in Ramoth-gilead (he had the villages of Jair son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead, and he had the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, 60 great cities with walls and bronze bars);

14 Ahinadab son of Iddo, [in] Mahanaim;

15 Ahimaaz, in Naphtali (he also had married a daughter of Solomon-Basemath);

16 Baana son of Hushai, in Asher and Bealoth;

17 Jehoshaphat son of Paruah, in Issachar;

18 Shimei son of Ela, in Benjamin;

19 Geber son of Uri, in the land of Gilead, the country of Sihon king of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan. There was one deputy in the land of Judah.

20 Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the sea; [they were] eating, drinking, and rejoicing.

21 Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and as far as the border of Egypt. They offered tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

22 Solomon's provisions for one day were 150 bushels of fine flour and 300 bushels of meal,

23 10 fattened oxen, 20 range oxen, and 100 sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and pen-fed poultry,

24 for he had dominion over everything west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza and over all the kings west of the Euphrates. He had peace on all his surrounding borders.

25 Throughout Solomon's [reign], Judah and Israel lived in safety from Dan to Beer-sheba, each man under his own vine and his own fig tree.

26 Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen.

27 Each of those deputies for a month in turn provided food for King Solomon and for everyone who came to King Solomon's table. They neglected nothing.

28 Each man brought the barley and the straw for the chariot teams and the other horses to the required place according to his assignment.

29 God gave Solomon wisdom, very great insight, and understanding as [vast] as the sand on the seashore.

30 Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

31 He was wiser than anyone-wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, sons of Mahol. His reputation extended to all the surrounding nations.

32 Solomon composed 3,000 proverbs, and his songs numbered 1,005.

33 He described trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop growing out of the wall. He also taught about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.

34 People came from everywhere, [sent] by every king on earth who had heard of his wisdom, to listen to Solomon's wisdom.

1 Solomon [began to] build the temple for the Lord in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in the second month, in the month of Ziv.

2 The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

3 The portico in front of the temple sanctuary was 30 feet long extending across the temple's width, and 15 feet deep in front of the temple.

4 He also made windows with beveled frames for the temple.

5 He then built a chambered structure along the temple wall, encircling the walls of the temple, that is, the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around.

6 The lowest chamber was seven and a half feet wide, the middle was nine feet wide, and the third was 10 and a half feet wide. He also provided offset ledges for the temple all around the outside so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

7 The temple's construction used finished stones cut at the quarry so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

8 The door for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the temple. They went up a stairway to the middle [chamber], and from the middle to the third.

9 When he finished building the temple, he paneled it with boards and planks of cedar.

10 He built the chambers along the entire temple, joined to the temple with cedar beams; [each story was] seven and a half feet high.

11 The word of the Lord came to Solomon:

12 "As for this temple you are building-if you walk in My statutes, execute My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill My promise to you, which I made to your father David.

13 I will live among the Israelites and not abandon My people Israel."

14 When Solomon finished building the temple,

15 he paneled the interior temple walls with cedar boards; from the temple floor to the surface of the ceiling he overlaid the interior with wood. He also overlaid the floor with cypress boards.

16 Then he lined 30 feet of the rear of the temple with cedar boards from the floor to the surface of the ceiling, and he built the interior as an inner sanctuary, the most holy place.

17 The temple, that is, the sanctuary in front of the most holy place, was 60 feet long.

18 The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with [ornamental] gourds and flower blossoms. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

19 He prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple to put the ark of the Lord's covenant there.

20 The interior of the sanctuary was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the cedar altar.

21 Next, Solomon overlaid the interior of the temple with pure gold, and he hung gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold.

22 So he added the gold overlay to the entire temple until everything was completely finished, including the entire altar that belongs in the inner sanctuary.

23 In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim 15 feet high out of olive wood.

24 One wing of the [first] cherub was seven and a half feet long, and the other wing was seven and a half feet long. The wingspan was 15 feet from tip to tip.

25 The second cherub also was 15 feet; both cherubim had the same size and shape.

26 The first cherub's height was 15 feet and so was the second cherub's.

27 Then he put the cherubim inside the inner temple. Since their wings were spread out, the first one's wing touched [one] wall while the second cherub's wing touched the other wall, and in the middle of the temple their wings were touching wing to wing.

28 He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

29 He carved all the surrounding temple walls with carved engravings-cherubim, palm trees and flower blossoms-in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.

30 He overlaid the temple floor with gold in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.

31 For the entrance of the inner sanctuary, he made olive wood doors. The pillars of the doorposts were five-sided.

32 The two doors were made of olive wood. He carved cherubim, palm trees and flower blossoms on them and overlaid them with gold, hammering gold over the cherubim and palm trees.

33 In the same way, he made four-sided olive wood doorposts for the sanctuary entrance.

34 The two doors were made of cypress wood; the first door had two folding sides, and the second door had two folding panels.

35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and flower blossoms on them and overlaid them with gold applied evenly over the carving.

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

37 The foundation of the Lord's temple was laid in [Solomon's] fourth year in the month of Ziv.

38 In [his] eleventh year in the eighth month, in the month of Bul, the temple was completed in every detail and according to every specification. So he built it in seven years.