Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place where this grain-floor is, so that I may put up an altar here to the Lord: let me have it for its full price; so that this disease may be stopped among the people.

And Ornan said to David, Take it, and let my lord the king do what seems right to him. See, I give you the oxen for burned offerings and the grain-cleaning instruments for fire-wood, and the grain for the meal offering; I give it all.

And King David said to Ornan, No; I will certainly give you the full price for it, because I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or give a burned offering without payment.

So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.

At that time, when David saw that the Lord had given him an answer on the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he made an offering there.

For the House of the Lord, which Moses had made in the waste land, and the altar of burned offerings, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.

But David was not able to go before it to get directions from the Lord, so great was his fear of the sword of the angel of the Lord.

And he got together a great store of iron, for the nails for the doors and for the joins; and brass, more in weight than might be measured;

And David said, Solomon my son is young and untested, and the house which is to be put up for the Lord is to be very great, a thing of wonder and glory through all countries; so I will make ready what is needed for it. So David got ready a great store of material before his death.

And David said to Solomon, My son, it was my desire to put up a house for the name of the Lord my God.

Now see, poor though I am, I have got ready for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of gold and a million talents of silver; and a weight of brass and iron greater than may be measured; and wood and stone have I made ready, and you may put more to it.

And you have a great number of workmen, cutters and workers of stone and wood, and experts in every sort of work,

And the Levites, all those of thirty years old and over, were numbered; and the number of them, by heads, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand.

And at his death Eleazar had no sons, but only daughters, and their relations, the sons of Kish, took them as wives.

And from now, there will be no need for the House of the Lord, and the vessels used in it, to be moved about by the Levites.

They had to take their places every morning to give praise and make melody to the Lord, and in the same way at evening;

At every offering of burned offerings to the Lord, on Sabbaths, and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts, in the number ordered by the law, at all times before the Lord;

And there were more chiefs among the sons of Eleazar than among the sons of Ithamar; and this is how they were grouped: of the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen, all heads of families; and of the sons of Ithamar, heads of families, there were eight.

Now the first name to come out was that of Jehoiarib; the second Jedaiah,

And the number of them, with their brothers who were trained and expert in making melody to the Lord, was two hundred and eighty-eight.

Now of the group of Asaph, the first name to come out was Joseph; the second Gedaliah; he and his brothers and sons were twelve?

And the care of the door on the east came out for Shelemiah. Then the name of Zechariah his son, a man wise in discussion, came out, and the door on the north was given to him.

To Hosah, the door on the west, by the door of Shallecheth, at the footway which goes up, watch by watch.

For the pillared way, on the west, four at the footway and two at the pillared way itself.

And everything Samuel the prophet and Saul, the son of Kish, and Abner, the son of Ner, and Joab, the son of Zeruiah, had made holy; whatever anyone had given, it was under the care of Shelomoth and his brothers.

Of the Hebronites, Jerijah was the chief of all the Hebronites, in their generations by families. In the fortieth year of the rule of David a search was made, and able men were seen among them at Jazer of Gilead.

Now the number of the children of Israel, that is, the heads of families, and the captains of thousands and of hundreds, and the men in authority who were servants of the king in anything to do with the divisions which came in and went out month by month through all the months of the year, in every division were twenty-four thousand.

Of the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo, the son of Zechariah; of Benjamin, Jaasiel, the son of Abner;

The numbering was started by Joab, the son of Zeruiah, but he did not go on to the end; and because of it, wrath came on Israel and the number was not recorded in the history of King David.

And David got together at Jerusalem all the rulers of Israel, the chiefs of the tribes and the captains of the divisions waiting on the king in turn, and the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds and the controllers of all the goods and property of the king and his sons, with the unsexed servants and the great men of war.

Then David the king got up and said, Give ear to me, my brothers and my people; it was my desire to put up a house, a resting-place for the ark of the Lord's agreement, and for the foot-rest of our God; and I had got material ready for the building of it.

Though the Lord, the God of Israel, took me out of all my father's family, to be king over Israel for ever, marking out Judah to be chief, and, of the people of Judah, my father's family; and among the sons of my father he was pleased to make me king over all Israel;

And he said to me, Solomon your son will be the builder of my house and the open spaces round it; for I have taken him to be my son, and I will be his father.

I will keep his kingdom in its place for ever, if he is strong at all times to do my orders and keep my rules, as at this day.

So now, before the eyes of all Israel, the people of the Lord, and in the hearing of our God, keep and be true to the orders of the Lord your God; so that you may have this good land for yourselves and give it for a heritage to your children after you for ever.

Now then, take note; for the Lord has made selection of you to be the builder of a house for the holy place. Be strong and do it.

And the design of all he had in his heart for the outer squares of the house of the Lord, and for the rooms all round it, and for the store-houses of the house of the Lord, and for the store-houses for the holy things;

Of gold, by weight, for the vessels of gold, for all the vessels of different uses; and silver for all the vessels of silver by weight, for vessels of different uses;

And gold by weight for the light-supports and the vessels for the lights, the weight of gold needed for every support and every vessel for lights; and for the silver light-supports, the weight of silver needed for every support and for the different vessels as every one was to be used;

And gold by weight for the tables for the holy bread for every table, and silver for the silver tables;

Clear gold for the meat-hooks and the basins and the cups; for the gold basins, gold enough by weight for every basin; and silver by weight for every silver basin;

And David the king said to all the people, Solomon my son, the only one who has been marked out by God, is still young and untested, and the work is great, for this great house is not for man, but for the Lord God.

Now as far as I am able, I have made ready what is needed for the house of my God; the gold for the things of gold, and the silver for the silver things, and the brass for the brass things, iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood; beryls and jewels to be framed, and stones of different colours for ornament; all sorts of stones of great price, and polished building-stone, as much as is needed and more.

Then the people were glad because their offerings were freely given, for with a true heart they freely gave what they had to the Lord; and David the king was full of joy.

Wealth and honour come from you, and you are ruler over all, and in your hand is power and strength; it is in your power to make great, and to give strength to all.

But who am I and what is my people, that we have power to give so freely in this way? for all things come from you, and what we have given you is yours.

Then Solomon, and all the men of Israel with him, went to the high place at Gibeon, because the Tent of meeting of God, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, had made in the waste land, was there.

But the ark of God had been moved by David from Kiriath-jearim to the place which he had made ready for it, for he had put up a tent for it at Jerusalem.

And Solomon went up there to the brass altar before the Lord at the Tent of meeting, offering on it a thousand burned offerings.

In that night God came to Solomon in a vision, and said to him, Say what I am to give you.

Give me now wisdom and knowledge, so that I may go out and come in before this people: for who is able to be the judge of this great people of yours?

So Solomon went back from the high place at Gibeon, from before the Tent of meeting, to Jerusalem; and he was king over Israel.

And Solomon got together war-carriages and horsemen; he had one thousand, four hundred carriages and twelve thousand horsemen, which he kept, some in the carriage-towns and some with the king at Jerusalem.

And Solomon's horses came out of Egypt; the king's traders got them from Kue at a price.

A war-carriage might be got from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty: they got them at the same rate for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Aram.

Now it was Solomon's purpose to put up a house for the name of the Lord and a house for himself as king.

See! I am building a house for the name of the Lord my God, to be made holy to him, where perfumes of sweet spices will be burned before him, and the holy bread will be placed at all times, and burned offerings will be offered morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and at the new moons, and on the regular feasts of the Lord our God. This is a law for ever to Israel.

But who may have strength enough to make a house for him, seeing that the heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be his resting-place? who am I then to make a house for him? But I am building it only for the burning of perfume before him.

And send me cedar-trees, cypress-trees and sandal-wood from Lebanon, for, to my knowledge, your servants are expert wood-cutters in Lebanon; and my servants will be with yours,

And I will give as food to your servants, the wood-cutters, twenty thousand measures of grain, and twenty thousand measures of barley and twenty thousand measures of wine and twenty thousand measures of oil.

The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, whose father was a man of Tyre, an expert worker in gold and silver and brass and iron, in stone and wood, in purple and blue and fair linen and red, trained in the cutting of every sort of ornament and the invention of every sort of design; let him be given a place among your expert workmen and those of my lord, your father David.

And we will have wood cut from Lebanon, as much as you have need of, and will send it to you on flat boats by sea to Joppa, and from there you may take it up to Jerusalem.

Then Solomon made a start at building the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, where the Lord had been seen by his father David, in the place which David had made ready in the grain-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

And Solomon put the base of the house of God in position; by the older measure it was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.

And the covered way in front of the house was twenty cubits long, as wide as the house, and a hundred and twenty cubits high, all plated inside with the best gold.

And the greater house was roofed with cypress-wood, plated with the best gold and ornamented with designs of palm-trees and chains.

And he made the most holy place; it was twenty cubits long, and twenty cubits wide, like the greater house, and was plated all over with the best gold; six hundred talents were used for it.

And fifty shekels weight of gold was used for the nails. He had all the higher rooms plated with gold.

And in the same way, the wings of the other, five cubits long, were stretched out, one touching the wall and the other meeting the wing of the first winged one.

Then he made a brass altar, twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.

And he made the great water-vessel of metal, round in form, measuring ten cubits across from edge to edge; it was five cubits high and thirty cubits round.

And under it was a design of flowers all round it, ten to a cubit, circling the water-vessel in two lines; they were made from liquid metal at the same time as the water-vessel.

It was supported on twelve oxen, three facing to the north, three to the west, three to the south, and three to the east, the water-vessel resting on top of them; their back parts were all turned to the middle of it.

It was as thick as a man's open hand, and the edge of it was curved like the edge of a cup, like a lily flower; it would take three thousand baths.

The great water-vessel with the twelve oxen under it.

So Solomon made all these vessels, a very great store of them, and the weight of the brass used was not measured.

The flowers and the vessels for the lights and the instruments used for them, were all of gold; it was the best gold.

Then Solomon sent for all the responsible men of Israel, all the chiefs of the tribes and the heads of families of the children of Israel, to come to Jerusalem and take the ark of the Lord's agreement up out of the town of David, which is Zion.

And all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month.

And the priests took the ark of the Lord's agreement and put it in its place, in the inner room of the house, in the most holy place, under the wings of the winged ones.

Nothing was in the ark but the two flat stones which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made an agreement with the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt.

Now when the priests had come out of the holy place, (for all the priests who were present had made themselves holy, not keeping to their divisions;

And the Levites who made the music, all of them, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and brothers, robed in fair linen, were in their places with their brass and corded instruments at the east side of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests blowing horns;)

From the day when I took my people out of the land of Egypt, no town in all the tribes of Israel has been marked out by me for the building of a house for the resting-place of my name; and I took no man to be a ruler over my people Israel;

Now it was in the heart of my father David to put up a house for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.

But you yourself will not be the builder of the house; but your son, the offspring of your body, he it is who will put up a house for my name.

(For Solomon had made a brass stage, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had put it in the middle of the open space; on this he took his place and went down on his knees before all the meeting of Israel, stretching out his hands to heaven.)

For you have kept the word which you gave to your servant David, my father; with your mouth you said it and with your hand you have made it come true this day.

But is it truly possible that God may be housed with men on earth? see, heaven and the heaven of heavens are not wide enough to be your resting-place: how much less this house which I have made:

Whatever prayer or request for your grace is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, whatever his trouble may be, whose hands are stretched out to this house:

Then give ear from heaven your living-place, and give him his desire, whatever it may be; so that all the peoples of the earth may have knowledge of your name, worshipping you as do your people Israel, and may see that this house which I have made is truly named by your name.

If your people go out to war against their attackers, by whatever way you may send them, if they make their prayers to you turning their faces to this town of yours and to this house which I have put up for your name:

And if they take thought, in the land where they are prisoners, turning again to you, crying out in prayer to you in that land, and saying, We are sinners, we have done wrong, we have done evil;

Up! now, O Lord God, come back to your resting-place, you and the ark of your strength: let your priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints be glad in what is good.

So Solomon kept the feast at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great meeting, for the people had come together from the way into Hamath and from as far as the river of Egypt.

So Solomon came to the end of building the house of the Lord and the king's house; and everything which it was in his mind to make in the house of the Lord and for himself had been well done.

If, at my word, heaven is shut up, so that there is no rain, or if I send locusts on the land for its destruction, or if I send disease on my people;

For I have taken this house for myself and made it holy, so that my name may be there for ever; and my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.

Then I will have this people uprooted out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, I will put away from before my eyes, and make it an example and a word of shame among all peoples.

And their answer will be, Because they were turned away from the Lord, the God of their fathers, who took them out of the land of Egypt, and took for themselves other gods and gave them worship and became their servants: that is why he has sent all this evil on them.