1Then Solomon began to build Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where Yahweh had appeared to his father David. Solomon built it on the site David had prepared, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
2He began building on the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.
3These are the foundations Solomon laid for the building of God’s house: The length, by the former standard, was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits.
4The porch in front was twenty cubits long (the same as the width of the house) and one hundred twenty cubits high. He covered its interior with pure gold.
5He made the main room with a ceiling of cypress wood, which he covered with fine gold and decorated with palm tree designs and chains.
6He adorned the temple with precious stones for beauty. The gold used was from Parvaim.
7He also covered the temple itself, its beams, thresholds, walls, and doors with gold, and engraved cherubim on the walls.
8He made the Most Holy Place. Its length was twenty cubits, the same as the width of the house, and its width was twenty cubits. He covered it with fine gold, totaling six hundred talents.
9The gold nails weighed fifty shekels. He also covered the upper rooms with gold.
10In the Most Holy Place, he made two carved cherubim and covered them with gold.
11The wings of the cherubim were thirty feet long. One wing was seven and a half feet, reaching to the wall of the temple, and the other wing was seven and a half feet, reaching to the wing of the other cherub.
12The wing of the second cherub was seven and a half feet, reaching to the wall of the temple, and its other wing was seven and a half feet, joining the wing of the first cherub.
13The wings of these cherubim spread out thirty feet. They stood on their feet, facing the temple.
14He made the curtain for the Most Holy Place from blue, purple, and crimson yarn, and fine linen, and cherubim were embroidered on it.
15He also made two pillars in front of the temple, fifty-two and a half feet high, with capitals on top of each pillar that were seven and a half feet high.
16He made chains for the inner sanctuary and put them on top of the pillars. He also made one hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains.
17He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and one on the left. He named the right pillar Jachin and the left pillar Boaz.