1 It was in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel, in the month Ziv (the second month), that he started building the house of the LORD.
2 The house King Solomon built for the LORD measured sixty cubits in length, twenty in width and thirty in height.
3 The porch before the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, across the width of the house, and ten cubits deep along the front of the house.
4 For the house he made windows with recessed frames.
5 Against the wall of the house he built a structure running all around, against the walls of the house surrounding the nave and the inner sanctuary, and he made side rooms all around.
6 The bottom story was five cubits across, the middle one six cubits across and the third seven cubits across, because on the outside he made ledges in the house's wall all around, so that nothing would be fastened into the walls of the house.
7 The house, as it was being built, was built of stone already dressed at the quarry; no hammer, axe or tool of iron was to be heard in the house during its building.
8 The door to the middle side room was on the south side of the house; a winding stair led up to the middle story and from the middle to the third.
9 He built the house and completed it, covering the house with beams and rows of cedar.
10 Against the whole house he built the side structure, five cubits high, and fastened it to the house with cedar timbers.
11 Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying,
12 "As for this house you are building, if you walk in my statutes, carry out my rules and keep all my commandments, walking in them, then I will make good to you my word that I spoke to your father David.
13 I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel and will not abandon my people Israel."
14 Solomon built the house and completed it.
15 On the inside he built the walls of the house with cedar boards; from the floor of the house up to the walls at the ceiling he covered them inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the house with cypress boards.
16 At the back of the house he built off twenty cubits with cedar boards from the floor up to the walls; this he built inside as an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.
17 The house, that is, the nave in front of it, measured forty cubits.
18 Inside, the house was cedar carved with gourds and open blossoms; everything was cedar, and no stone could be seen.
19 The inner sanctuary he made ready in the interior of the house, to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there.
20 The front of the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, twenty in width and twenty in height, and he covered it with refined gold; he covered the cedar altar as well.
21 Solomon covered the house inside with refined gold. He stretched gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary and covered it with gold.
22 The whole house he covered with gold until all of it was complete, and the entire altar belonging to the inner sanctuary he covered with gold.
23 Inside the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olive wood, ten cubits tall.
24 One wing of the cherub measured five cubits and the other wing of the cherub five cubits, ten cubits from one wingtip to the other.
25 The second cherub was ten cubits too; the two cherubim were of one size and one shape.
26 The one cherub stood ten cubits high, and the other cherub likewise.
27 He placed the cherubim inside the inner house. The cherubim's wings were outstretched, so that a wing of the one reached one wall and a wing of the second cherub reached the other wall, and their wings met each other, wing to wing, in the center of the house.
28 The cherubim he covered with gold.
29 All around the walls of the house he carved figures of cherubim, palm trees and open blossoms, both inside and out.
30 The floor of the house he covered with gold, both inside and out.
31 At the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood; the lintel with the doorposts was a fifth part of the wall.
32 On the two doors of olive wood he carved cherubim, palm trees and open blossoms and covered them with gold, hammering the gold onto the cherubim and onto the palm trees.
33 In the same way he made doorposts of olive wood for the entrance of the nave, a fourth part of the wall,
34 with two doors of cypress wood, the two leaves of one door turning on pivots, and the two leaves of the other door turning on pivots.
35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and open blossoms on them and covered them with gold fitted evenly over the carving.
36 The inner court he built with three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar beams.
37 The foundation of the LORD's house was laid in the fourth year, in the month Ziv,
38 and in the eleventh year, in the month Bul (the eighth month), the house was completed in every detail and according to its whole design. He spent seven years building it.