3
There was a porch across the thirty-foot width of The Temple that extended out fifteen feet.
4
Within The Temple he made narrow, deep-silled windows.
5
Against the outside walls he built a supporting structure in which there were smaller rooms:
6
The lower floor was seven and a half feet wide, the middle floor nine feet, and the third floor ten and a half feet. He had projecting ledges built into the outside Temple walls to support the buttressing beams.
7
The stone blocks for the building of The Temple were all dressed at the quarry so that the building site itself was reverently quiet - no noise from hammers and chisels and other iron tools.
8
The entrance to the ground floor was at the south end of The Temple; stairs led to the second floor and then to the third.
9
Solomon built and completed The Temple, finishing it off with roof beams and planks of cedar.
10
The supporting structure along the outside walls was attached to The Temple with cedar beams and the rooms in it were seven and a half feet tall.
11
The word of God came to Solomon saying,
12
"About this Temple you are building - what's important is that you live the way I've set out for you and do what I tell you, following my instructions carefully and obediently. Then I'll complete in you the promise I made to David your father.
13
I'll personally take up my residence among the Israelites - I won't desert my people Israel."
14
Solomon built and completed The Temple.
15
He paneled the interior walls from floor to ceiling with cedar planks; for flooring he used cypress.
16
The thirty feet at the rear of The Temple he made into an Inner Sanctuary, cedar planks from floor to ceiling - the Holy of Holies.
17
The Main Sanctuary area in front was sixty feet long.
18
The entire interior of The Temple was cedar, with carvings of fruits and flowers. All cedar - none of the stone was exposed.
19
The Inner Sanctuary within The Temple was for housing the Chest of the Covenant of God.
20
This Inner Sanctuary was a cube, thirty feet each way, all plated with gold. The Altar of cedar was also gold-plated.
21
Everywhere you looked there was pure gold: gold chains strung in front of the gold-plated Inner Sanctuary
22
- gold everywhere - walls, ceiling, floor, and Altar. Dazzling!
23
Then he made two cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, from olivewood. Each was fifteen feet tall.
24
The outstretched wings of the cherubim (they were identical in size and shape) measured another fifteen feet. He placed the two cherubim, their wings spread, in the Inner Sanctuary. The combined wingspread stretched the width of the room, the wing of one cherub touched one wall, the wing of the other the other wall, and the wings touched in the middle.
28
The cherubim were gold plated.