1 Kings 6:3-23

3The portico in front of the temple sanctuary was thirty feet long extending across the temple’s width, and fifteen feet deep in front of the temple.

4He also made windows with beveled frames for the temple.

5He then built a chambered structure along the temple wall, encircling the walls of the temple, that is, the sanctuary and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around.

6The lowest chamber was 7½ feet wide, the middle was 9 feet wide, and the third was 10½ feet wide. He also provided offset ledges for the temple all around the outside so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.

7The temple’s construction used finished stones cut at the quarry so that no hammer, chisel, or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

8The door for the lowest side chamber was on the right side of the temple. They went up a stairway to the middle chamber, and from the middle to the third.

9When he finished building the temple, he paneled it with boards and planks of cedar.

10He built the chambers along the entire temple, joined to the temple with cedar beams; each story was 7½ feet high.

11The word of the Lord came to Solomon:

12“As for this temple you are building — if you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep all my commands by walking in them, I will fulfill my promise to you, which I made to your father David.

13I will dwell among the Israelites and not abandon my people Israel.”

14When Solomon finished building the temple,

15he paneled the interior temple walls with cedar boards; from the temple floor to the surface of the ceiling he overlaid the interior with wood. He also overlaid the floor with cypress boards.

16Then he lined thirty feet of the rear of the temple with cedar boards from the floor to the surface of the ceiling, and he built the interior as an inner sanctuary, the most holy place.

17The temple, that is, the sanctuary in front of the most holy place, was sixty feet long.

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

19He prepared the inner sanctuary inside the temple to put the ark of the Lord’s covenant there.

20The interior of the sanctuary was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the cedar altar.

21Next, Solomon overlaid the interior of the temple with pure gold, and he hung gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary and overlaid it with gold.

22So he added the gold overlay to the entire temple until everything was completely finished, including the entire altar that belongs to the inner sanctuary.

23In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim 15 feet high out of olive wood.