Solomon the son of David established himself securely over his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.

Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds and to the judges and to every leader in all Israel, the heads of the fathers’ (ancestors’) households.

Then Solomon and all the assembly went to the high place at Gibeon [to offer sacrifices, where the Canaanites had habitually worshiped], for God’s Tent of Meeting was there, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness.

And Solomon went up to the bronze altar before the Lord at the Tent of Meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.

Then Solomon said to God, “You have shown great lovingkindness and mercy to my father David, and have made me king in his place.

Now, O Lord God, Your promise to my father David is fulfilled, for You have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.

Give me wisdom and knowledge, so that I may go out and come in [performing my duties] before this people, for [otherwise] who can rule and administer justice to this great people of Yours?”

God replied to Solomon, “Because this was in your heart and you did not ask for riches, possessions or honor and personal glory, or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for long life, but you have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself so that you may rule and administer justice to My people over whom I have made you king,

Solomon acquired chariots and horsemen; he had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, and he stationed them in the cities [suited for the use] of chariots and with the king at Jerusalem.

The king made silver and gold as plentiful and common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore-fig trees in the lowland.

Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue. The king’s merchants purchased them [in large numbers] from Kue at a price.

So Solomon assigned 70,000 men to carry loads, 80,000 men to quarry stone in the mountains, and 3,600 to supervise them.

Then Solomon sent word to Hiram king of Tyre, saying, “As you dealt with my father David and sent him cedars to build himself a house in which to live, [please] do the same for me.

Observe, I am about to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God, dedicated to Him, to burn fragrant incense [of sweet spices] before Him, to set out the showbread continually, and to offer burnt offerings morning and evening, on Sabbaths, New Moons, and on the festivals of the Lord our God, as ordained forever in Israel.

But who is able to build a house for Him, since the heavens and [even] the highest heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I to build a house for Him, except [as a place] to burn incense before Him?

Now send me a man who is skilled to work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and in purple, crimson, and blue fabrics, and who knows how to make engravings, to work with the skilled men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom my father David provided.

Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber, for I know that your servants know how to cut timber in Lebanon. And indeed my servants will work with your servants

to prepare for me an abundance of timber, because the house I am about to build will be great and wonderful.

And I will give to your servants who cut timber, 20,000 measures of crushed wheat and 20,000 measures of barley, and 20,000 baths of wine and 20,000 baths of [olive] oil.”

Then Hiram, king of Tyre replied in a letter sent to Solomon: “Because the Lord loves His people, He has made you king over them.”

the son of a Danite woman and a Tyrian father. He is trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood; in purple, blue, and crimson fabrics, and in fine linen. He is able to make any kind of engraving and to carry out any design given him. He will work with your skilled men and those of my lord, David your father.

Now then, let my lord send to his servants the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine of which he has spoken.

We will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you on rafts by sea to Joppa, so that you may take it up to Jerusalem.”

Then Solomon took a count of all the aliens in the land of Israel, like the census that his father David had taken; and they were found to be 153,600.

He assigned 70,000 of them to carry loads and 80,000 to quarry stone in the mountain, and 3,600 as overseers to make the people work.

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared to his father David, in the place that David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Solomon began to build on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

Now this is the [measurement of the] foundation which Solomon laid for the house of God: the length in cubits—by the old standard of measure—was sixty cubits (90 ft.), and the width was twenty cubits (30 ft.).

He overlaid the main room [the Holy Place] with cypress wood and overlaid it with fine gold, and decorated it with palm trees and chains.

He also overlaid the house [the Holy Place] with gold—the beams, the thresholds, and its walls and its doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.

And in the Holy of Holies he made two sculptured cherubim, and overlaid them with gold.

The wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits: one wing of one cherub was five cubits, reaching to the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the other cherub’s wing.

The wing of the other cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and its other wing of five cubits touched the wing of the first cherub.

The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. The cherubim stood on their feet, their faces toward the Holy Place (the main room).

He made the veil [between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies] of blue, purple, and crimson colors, and fine linen, and embroidered cherubim on it.

He also made two pillars for the front of the house, thirty-five cubits high, and the capital on the top of each one was five cubits.

He made chains [like a necklace] in the inner sanctuary and put them on the tops of the pillars; and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.

He erected the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right, the other on the left, and named the one on the right Jachin (may He establish) and the one on the left Boaz (in Him is strength).

Then Solomon made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and ten cubits in height.

Under it and entirely encircling it were figures of oxen, ten to a cubit. The oxen were in two rows, cast in one piece.

He also made ten [portable] basins in which to wash, and he put five on the right (south) side and five on the left (north). They would rinse things for the burnt offering in them, but the Sea was for the priests to wash in.

And he made ten golden lampstands just as directed and set them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left.

He made also ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left side, and he made a hundred [ceremonial] basins of gold.

the two pillars, the bowls, the capitals on top of the two pillars, and the two lattice works to cover the two bowls of the capitals which were on top of the pillars,

and the one Sea with the twelve oxen under it.

The king cast them on the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredah.

Solomon made all these utensils in such great quantity that the weight of the bronze could not be determined.

Thus all the work that Solomon did for the house of the Lord was finished. He brought in the things that his father David had dedicated, and he put the silver and the gold and all the utensils in the treasuries of the house of God.

All the men of Israel gathered before the king at the feast in the seventh month.

The Levitical priests brought up the ark, the Tent of Meeting, and all the holy utensils that were in the Tent.

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets [of the Ten Commandments] which Moses put there at Mount Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt.

When the priests came out of the Holy Place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves [separating themselves from everything unclean], without regard to their assigned divisions),

and all of the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, with their sons and relatives, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres were standing at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets

in unison when the trumpeters and singers were to make themselves heard with one voice praising and thanking the Lord, and when they raised their voices accompanied by the trumpets and cymbals and [other] instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever,” then the house of the Lord was filled with a cloud,

Then Solomon said,“The Lord has said that He would dwell in the thick cloud.

“I have built You a lofty house,
A place for You to dwell forever.”

‘Since the day that I brought My people out of the land of Egypt, I did not choose a city among all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house so that My Name (Presence) might be there, nor did I choose any man to be a leader over My people Israel;

Now it was in the heart of my father David to build a house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But the Lord said to my father David, ‘Because it was in your heart to build a house for My Name, you did well that it was in your heart.

Now the Lord has fulfilled His word which He spoke; for I have risen in place of my father David and I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord promised, and have built the house for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

There I have placed the ark [the symbol of His Presence] in which is the covenant of the Lord [the Ten Commandments], which He made with the people (descendants) of Israel.”

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of the entire assembly of Israel and spread out his hands.

For Solomon had made a bronze platform, five cubits square and three cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the courtyard; and he stood on it, and he knelt down on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven,

and he said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no god like You in heaven or on the earth, keeping covenant and showing mercy and lovingkindness to Your servants who walk before You [in obedience] with all their heart,

Now therefore, O Lord, the God of Israel, keep with Your servant David, my father, that which You promised him, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man to sit on the throne of Israel, provided your sons are careful to walk in My law as you, [David,] have walked before Me.’

“But will God actually dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You; how much less this house which I have built!

that Your eyes may be open toward this house day and night, toward the place in which You have said that You would put Your Name (Presence), to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place.

So listen to the requests of Your servant and Your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from Your dwelling place, from heaven; and when You hear, forgive.

“If a man sins against his neighbor, and he is required to take an oath, and he comes and takes the oath before Your altar in this house,

then hear from heaven and act and judge Your servants, punishing the wicked by bringing his conduct on his own head, and providing justice to the righteous by giving to him in accordance with his righteousness (innocence).

“If Your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against You, and they return to You and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this house,

“When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because Your people have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin when You afflict and humble them;

then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants and Your people Israel, indeed, teach them the good way in which they should walk. And send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.

“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, if there are [migratory] locusts or grasshoppers, if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or whatever sickness there is,

then whatever prayer or request is made by any man or all of Your people Israel, each knowing his own suffering and his own pain, and stretching out his hands toward this house,

so that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways [in obedience to You] as long as they live in the land which You have given to our fathers.

if they take it to heart in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and pray to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong and have acted wickedly’;

if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, and pray facing their land which You have given to their fathers and toward the city which You have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Your Name;

“Now, O my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.

“Now then arise, O Lord God, [and come] to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength and power. Let Your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation and let Your godly ones rejoice in [Your] goodness.

“O Lord God, do not turn away and reject the face of Your anointed; remember Your lovingkindness and faithfulness to Your servant David.”

When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the [Shekinah] glory and brilliance of the Lord filled the house.

When all the people of Israel saw how the fire came down and saw the glory and brilliance of the Lord upon the house, they bowed down on the stone pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy and lovingkindness endure forever.”

And on the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon sent the people to their tents, rejoicing and happy in heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David, to Solomon, and to His people Israel.

And so Solomon finished the house (temple) of the Lord and the palace of the king. He successfully accomplished all that he had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his palace.

Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer offered in this place.

then I will establish your royal throne just as I covenanted with your father David, saying, ‘You will not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’

And as for this house, which was so exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’

Now it came about at the end of the twenty years, in which Solomon had built the house of the Lord and his own house (palace),

He built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all his storage cities in Hamath.

and Baalath and all the storage cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land under his rule.

but were descendants of those who were left in the land, whom the Israelites had not destroyed—Solomon brought them up as forced laborers to this day.

These were the chief officers of King Solomon, two hundred and fifty [in authority] who ruled over the people.

Then Solomon brought the daughter of Pharaoh up from the City of David into the house (palace) he had built for her, for he said, “My wife shall not live in the house of David king of Israel, because the places where the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.”

Then Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had built in front of the porch [of the temple],

a certain number every day, offering them up as Moses commanded for the Sabbaths, the New Moons, and the three annual feasts—the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles).

And they did not deviate from the commandment of the king to the priests and Levites in any respect or in regard to the storehouses or treasuries.

Then Solomon went to Ezion-geber and to Eloth on the shore of the [Red] Sea in the land of Edom.

When the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with riddles. She was accompanied by a very large number of attendants, with camels bearing spices (balsam oil) and a large amount of gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she talked with him about all that was on her mind.

So when the queen of Sheba saw the [depth of] Solomon’s wisdom, and the house which he had built,