1
And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the LORD and a house for his kingdom.
2
And Solomon counted seventy thousand men to bear burdens and eighty thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred to oversee them.
3
And Solomon sent to Hiram, the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David, my father, sending him cedars to build himself a house to dwell in,
even so deal with me.
4
Behold, I must build a house unto the name of the LORD my God, to dedicate
it to him
and to burn aromatic incense before him and for the continual showbread and for the burnt offerings morning and evening on the sabbaths and on the new moons and on the solemn feasts of the LORD our God, which is to be perpetual in Israel.
5
And the house which I must build
is great, for great
is our God above all gods.
6
But who is so powerful as to build him a house, seeing the heavens and heavens of the heavens cannot contain him? Who
am I then that I should build him a house, except to burn incense before him?
7
Send me now, therefore, a wise man who knows how to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in iron and in purple and crimson and blue and that knows how to engrave figures with the craftsmen that
are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David, my father, provided.
8
Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and pine trees, out of Lebanon, for I know that thy slaves are skillful at cutting timber in Lebanon, and, behold, my slaves
shall be with thy slaves
9
to prepare me timber in abundance, for the house which I am about to build
shall be great and wonderful.
10
And, behold, I will give to thy slaves, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of oil.
11
Then Hiram, the king of Tyre, answered in writing, which he sent to Solomon, Because the LORD has loved his people, he has placed thee as king over them.