Read the Modern Pastor’s Version

In the four hundred and eighty years after the Israelites had left Egypt, King Solomon started building the Lord's temple in his fourth year of ruling over Israel. This began during the month of Zif, which is the second month.

The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. In front of the temple of the house, there was a porch twenty cubits in length, matching the width of the house, and ten cubits in breadth.

King Solomon designed windows of narrow lights into the walls of the house. He built stories all around the temple and inner sanctuary, making side rooms for support. The chambers beneath had five cubits of width, while those above were six and seven cubits wide respectively.

When constructing the house, King Solomon used stone prepared at the quarry before it was brought to the site. As a result, no sound of hammer or axe or any iron tool could be heard within the house during its construction.

The door for the middle chamber was positioned on the right side of the house, allowing people to ascend with winding stairs into the middle and then third chambers. The entire house was built using cedar beams and boards, covering it from floor to ceiling.

King Solomon added more rooms against all sides of the house, five cubits high, constructed with cedar timber resting on the house itself. He instructed his workers to build walls within the house with boards of cedar, covering them inside with wood from floor to ceiling. The floors were made with planks of fir, and the entire interior was covered in cedar beams.

In constructing the temple's inner sanctum, King Solomon built twenty cubits on the sides using both the floor and the walls made of cedar boards. He crafted intricate carvings of knops and open flowers into the cedar panels without any visible stone. The space before the Most Holy Place measured twenty cubits in length, width, and height, overlaid with pure gold.

The entire house was covered in pure gold until it was completely finished, including the altar before the Most Holy Place. King Solomon then made two cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits high, placed within the inner house. He carved intricate carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers into all the walls around the house both inside and out.

The floors of the house were also overlaid with gold on both sides. For the entrance to the oracle, King Solomon made doors of olive wood; the lintel and side posts took up a fifth part of the wall. The two doors were carved with cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, then covered in gold.

He made similar doorposts for the temple's main entrance out of olive tree. For these doors, he used fir wood, creating two folding leaves on each one. King Solomon carved intricate carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers into them before covering them with gold that matched their designs.

The foundation of the Lord's house was laid in the month Zif during the fourth year of King Solomon's reign. After eleven years, seven of which were spent on building it, the entire house was completed according to all its specifications in the eighth month of Bul.