1 Kings 6:3-23

3The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits1 long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits2 in front of the temple.

4He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple.

5Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. 6The bottom floor was five cubits wide,3 the middle floor six cubits,4 and the third floor seven cubits.5 He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.

7The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

8The entrance to the bottom6 floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor.

9So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar. 10He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar.

11Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying: 12“As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David. 13And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.”

14So Solomon built the temple and finished it. 15He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress7 boards.

16He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.8 17And the main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.9

18The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

19Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.10

21So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains11 across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22So he overlaid with gold the whole interior of the temple, until everything was completely finished. He also overlaid with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

23In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, each ten cubits high, out of olive wood.