Old/New Testament

Chapter 6

Solomon Builds the Temple.^{[a] 1} And so he began to build the temple of the Lord in the four hundred and eighteenth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in Ziv, the second month.^[b]

² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. ³ The portico in front of the main part of the temple was as wide as the temple, that is, twenty cubits wide. It extended ten cubits in front of the temple. ⁴ He made windows with recessed frames for the temple. ⁵ He built chambers all around the outside walls of the main part and the inner sanctuary of the temple in which there were side rooms. ⁶ The lowest chamber was five cubits wide, the middle chamber was six cubits wide, and the third level was seven cubits wide. He made narrow ledges all around the temple so that nothing had to be fastened to the walls of the temple.

⁷ Stone that had been made ready was used in the building of the temple so that one did not hear the sound of hammers or chisels or any other iron tool while the temple was being built.^[c]

⁸ The entrance for the lowest level was on the right side of the temple. One went up by stairs from there to the middle level, and from the middle to the third level. ⁹ Thus he built the temple and completed it by roofing it with beams and cedar planks.

¹⁰ He built side rooms all along the temple. They were five cubits high, and they were attached to the temple with cedar beams.

¹¹ The word of the Lord then came to Solomon, ¹² “As for this temple that you are building, if you walk in my statutes and carry out my ordinances and observe my commandments, walking in them, then I will fulfill the promise I made to David, your father, through you. ¹³ I will dwell among the Israelites and I will not abandon my people Israel.”

¹⁴ Thus Solomon built the temple and completed it. ¹⁵ He lined the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards, covering the temple from the floor to its ceiling. He covered the floor of the temple with fir planks.

¹⁶ He separated off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar planks that ran from the floor to the ceiling, making an inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. ¹⁷ The part in front of the temple sanctuary was forty cubits long. ¹⁸ The inside of the temple was covered with cedar carved with buds and open flowers. Everything was covered in cedar, and no stone could be seen.

¹⁹ He set up the inner sanctuary in the temple as a place to set the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. It was covered in pure gold, as was also the cedar altar.

²¹ Solomon covered the inside of the temple in pure gold. He stretched gold chains in front of the inner sanctuary, and he covered it in pure gold. ²² He covered the entire temple with gold until he had completed the whole temple. He also covered the altar that was in the inner sanctuary with gold.

²³ He made two cherubim for the inner sanctuary out of olive wood, each ten cubits high. ²⁴ The first wing of the cherub was five cubits and the other wing was also five cubits, making ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. ²⁵ The other cherub was also ten cubits, for the two cherubim were the same size and shape. ²⁶ Each of the cherubim was ten cubits high. ²⁷ He set the cherubim in the innermost room of the temple. The wings of the cherubim were spread out, so that the wing of one touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched one another in the middle of the room. ²⁸ He covered the cherubim with gold.

²⁹ He carved images of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers on all of the walls around the temple, both in the inner and the outer rooms. ³⁰ The floor of the temple was covered with gold, both in the inner and outer rooms.

³¹ He made doors of olive wood for the entrance to the sanctuary. It had a five-sided frame. ³² There were two olive wood doors, and upon them he carved images of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. He covered the cherubim and the palm trees with beaten gold.

³³ In the same way he made four-sided frames out of olive wood for the entrance to the temple itself. ³⁴ He also made two doors out of fir wood. Each of the doors had two folding panels. ³⁵ He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers upon them, and he carefully covered the carvings upon them with gold. ³⁶ He built the inner court with three rows of hewn stone and then a row of cedar beams.

³⁷ In the fourth year, the month of Ziv, the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid. ³⁸ In the eleventh year, the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the temple was completely finished according to its plans. He needed seven years to build it.

Chapter 7

Solomon’s Palace.^{[d] 1} Now Solomon took thirteen years to completely finish building his own palace. ² He built the palace out of Lebanon wood. It was one hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. It was built upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams stretching out upon the pillars. ³ It was roofed with cedar that lay over the beams that rested on the pillars. There were forty-five beams, fifteen in a row. ⁴ Its windows were set high in the wall in sets of three, each set facing the other. ⁵ All of the doorways and windows had rectangular frames, with the windows facing each other in sets of three.

⁶ He made a hall of pillars. It was fifty cubits long and thirty cubits wide. There was a porch in front of it with other pillars and covered over by a canopy.

⁷ There was a throne room, the hall of justice, where he would sit in judgment. He covered it with cedar from floor to ceiling. ⁸ The palace in which he lived had another court inside the hall which had the same design. Solomon also built another palace like this hall for Pharaoh’s daughter whom he wed.

⁹ All of these, from the outside to the great courtyard, and from the foundations to the eaves, were built with costly stone that had been trimmed with saws on the inside and outside edges. ¹⁰ The foundations were laid with costly stones that were quite large, some being ten cubits and some eight cubits. ¹¹ Above these were costly stone, cut to measure, and cedar beams.

¹² The great courtyard was surrounded by three layers of cut stone and one layer of cedar beams, as was the inner courtyard of the temple of the Lord and its porch.

^13 [e]King Solomon brought back Hiram from Tyre. ¹⁴ His mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a craftsman from Tyre who worked in bronze. He was wise and knowledgeable and a skilled craftsman with all varieties of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all of his work.

¹⁵ He cast two bronze pillars, each of them measured eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference.^{[f] 16} He also cast two bronze capitals to be set on the top of the pillars. Each of the capitals was five cubits high. ¹⁷ A network of chains decorated the capitals on top of the pillars, seven on each of the capitals. ¹⁸ He made two rows of pomegranates which covered the network upon the capitals on top of the pillars. He did this on each of the capitals. ¹⁹ The capitals on top of the pillars that were in the porch were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high. ²⁰ Upon each of the capitals of the two pillars, on the outwardly curved surface between the network, there were two rows of pomegranates, two hundred in all. ²¹ He erected the pillars in the porch of the temple. He erected the pillar on the right and called it Jachin, and he erected the pillar on the left and called it Boaz. ²² On the top of the pillars there was lily work. Thus, the work on the pillars was completed.

²³ Then he made a molten sea, ten cubits from one edge to the other. It was five cubits high, and thirty cubits in circumference. ²⁴ Under the brim of its circumference there were gourds, ten to a cubit. There were two rows of gourds all around the sea, the gourds having been cast when the rest of it was cast. ²⁵ It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing to the north, three facing to the west, three facing to the south, and three facing to the east. The sea rested upon them, and their hindquarters were on the inside. ²⁶ It was a handsbreath thick, and its brim was like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held two thousand baths.

²⁷ He also made ten bronze carts. Each cart was four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high. ²⁸ This is how the carts were made. They had panels, and the panels were set in frames. ²⁹ There were lions, oxen, and cherubim on the panels between the frames. On the top of the frames was a stand. Below the lions and the oxen there were embossed wreaths.

³⁰ Each cart had four bronze wheels and bronze axles. There were supports for a basin at the four corners. The supports were cast with wreaths on either side. ³¹ The opening at the top of the cart was one cubit, and the opening was round, shaped like a pedestal, and it was one and a half cubits deep. There were carvings around the opening. The panels of the cart were square and not round.

³² The four wheels were under the panels, and the axles for the wheels were attached to the cart. Each wheel was one and a half cubits high. ³³ The wheels were made like chariot wheels, with axles, rims, spokes, and hubs, all of which were made from cast metal.

³⁴ Each cart had four handles, one on each corner, the handles being one piece with the cart. ³⁵ There was a circular band a half a cubit high at the top of the cart. The supports and the panels were attached to the top of the cart. ³⁶ He engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees on the surface of the supports and the panels wherever he could, with wreaths all around them.

³⁷ This is how he made the ten carts. They were all cast from one mold, so they were the same size and shape. ³⁸ He then made ten bronze basins. Each basin held forty baths and was four cubits across. There was one basin for each of the ten carts.

³⁹ He placed five of the stands at the right side of the temple, and five of the stands on the left side of the temple. He placed the sea on the right side of the temple, toward the southeast.

⁴⁰ Hiram also made basins, and shovels, and bowls. Thus Hiram completed all of the work that he was doing for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord: ⁴¹ the two pillars, the two bowl-shaped capitals that were on the top of the two pillars, the two networks that covered the bowl-shaped capitals on top of the two pillars, ⁴² the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each of the networks that covered the two bowl-shaped capitals on top of the pillars,^{[g] 43} the ten carts, and the ten basins upon the carts, ⁴⁴ one sea, and the twelve oxen under the sea, ⁴⁵ the pots, the shovels, and the basins.

All of the utensils that Hiram made for King Solomon for the temple of the Lord were made from bright bronze. ⁴⁶ The king cast them in the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground that lie between Succoth and Zarethan. ⁴⁷ Solomon did not weigh any of these utensils because there were too many of them; the weight of the bronze used in them was not determined.

⁴⁸ Solomon also made all of the furnishings that were in the temple of the Lord: the golden altar; the golden table upon which they laid the shewbread; ⁴⁹ the lampstands made of pure gold, five on the right side and five on the left side; the flower work, the lamps, and the tongs, all made of gold; ⁵⁰ the bowls, the snuffers, the sprinkling bowls, the spoons, and the censors, all made from pure gold; and the golden hinges for the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and for the doors of the main part of the temple.

⁵¹ When King Solomon had completed all of the work on the temple of the Lord, Solomon brought in the things that David, his father, had dedicated: the silver, the gold, and the furnishings. He placed them in the treasury of the temple of the Lord.

²⁷ Marriage and the Resurrection.^[a] Then some Sadducees, who assert that there is no resurrection, approached him and posed this question: ²⁸ “Teacher, Moses wrote down for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must marry his brother’s wife and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers. The first married a woman but died childless. ³⁰ Then the second ³¹ and the third married the widow, and it was the same with all seven: they all died leaving no children. ³² Last of all, the woman also died. ³³ Now at the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be, inasmuch as all seven had her?”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are judged worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection of the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. ³⁶ They are no longer subject to death, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are children of the resurrection.

³⁷ “That the dead are raised Moses himself showed in the account about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for in his sight all are alive.”

³⁹ Some of the scribes then said, “Teacher, you have answered well.” ⁴⁰ And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

⁴¹ Jesus Is Lord.^[b] Then Jesus said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is the Son of David? ⁴² For David himself says in the Book of Psalms:

⁴⁴ David thus calls him ‘Lord’; so how can he be his son?”

⁴⁵ Denunciation of the Scribes.^[c] While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁶ “Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and who love to be greeted respectfully in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁷ They devour the houses of widows, while for the sake of appearance they recite lengthy prayers. They will receive the severest possible condemnation.”