1 Kings 6
He Began to Build the House in the Fourth Year
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The Foundation of the House Laid
6:1In the four hundred fortieth year of the exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt, in the fourth year, in the second month, when King Solomon reigned over Israel,
6:1athe king commanded, and they carried great, costly stones for the house’s foundation, and unhewn stones.
6:1bSolomon’s sons and Hiram’s sons hewed them and laid them down.
6:1cIn the fourth year he laid the foundation of the Lord’s house in the month of Niso, the second month.
6:1dIn the eleventh year, in the month of Baal, which is the eighth month, the house was completed in every detail and according to its entire arrangement.
The Measures of the House
6:2The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was forty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty-five cubits high.
6:3The porch in front of the temple was twenty cubits long across the house’s width, and ten cubits wide in front of the house. He built the house and completed it.
6:4He made recessed, concealed windows for the house.
6:5He placed beams all around against the house’s wall, for the temple and the inner sanctuary; he made side chambers all around.
6:6The lowest side chamber was five cubits wide, the middle six, and the third seven cubits wide; for he left a space all around the house, outside the house, so that they would not take hold of the house’s walls.
6:7While the house was being built, it was built of sharply cut, unworked stones. No hammer, axe, or any iron implement was heard in the house while it was being built.
6:8The entrance of the lowest side chamber was beneath the house’s right shoulder. A winding ascent led to the middle tier, and from the middle to the third story.
6:9He built the house and completed it, and furnished the house with a coffered cedar ceiling.
6:10He built the connecting structures throughout the whole house, five cubits high, and held the connecting structure together with cedar timbers.
The Inner Work of Cedar and Gold
6:15He built the house’s walls with cedar timbers, from the floor of the house up to the beams and up to the walls. He fitted the interior continuously with wooden panels and covered the inside of the house with pine boards.
6:16He built the twenty cubits at the end of the house, the one side from the floor to the beams, and made the inner sanctuary into the Holy of Holies.
6:17The temple was forty cubits long in front
6:19of the inner sanctuary, inside the house, to place the ark of the Lord’s covenant there.
6:20It was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He covered it with refined gold, and he made an altar
6:21in front of the inner sanctuary, and he covered it with gold.
6:22He covered the whole house with gold until the entire house was finished.
The Two Cherubim in the Inner Sanctuary
6:23In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, their measured size ten cubits.
6:24One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and its other wing was five cubits: ten cubits from one wingtip to the other.
6:25So it was with the second cherub; both had one measure and one finished form.
6:26The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the second cherub.
6:27Both cherubim were within the innermost house. He spread their wings: one wing touched one wall, and a wing touched the other wall; their wings toward the middle of the house touched wing to wing.
6:28He covered the cherubim with gold.
6:29On all the house’s walls around he engraved cherubim with a carving tool; palm trees were in the inner and outer rooms.
6:30He covered the floor of the house with gold, in the innermost and outermost rooms.
The Doors of the Sanctuary and the Temple
6:31For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made juniper-wood doors and fivefold doorposts,
6:32and two pine-wood doors with carvings engraved on them: cherubim, palm trees, and spreading petals. He covered them with gold, and the gold came down over the cherubim and palm trees.
6:33Likewise he made the temple entrance: juniper-wood doorposts, porticoes fourfold,
6:34and both doors were of pine wood: one door had two leaves and their pivots, and the other door had two leaves that turned.
6:35There were engraved cherubim, palm trees, and spreading petals, covered with gold brought down over the relief.
The Innermost Court
6:36He built the innermost court with three courses of unhewn stones and a course of worked cedar all around.
6:36aHe built a curtain for the court of the house’s porch in front of the temple.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.