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Solomon began to build the House of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the site that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 2 He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.
3 The foundation Solomon laid for building God’s temple was sixty cubits long, and twenty cubits wide (using the cubit of the old standard). 4 The portico at the front of the temple extended across the width of the building twenty cubits, and its height was twenty cubits.
He overlaid it on the inside with pure gold. 5 The main hall he panelled with cypress wood and overlaid it with fine gold, and decorated it with palm trees and chains. 6 He adorned the temple with precious stones for beauty, and the gold was the gold of Parvaim. 7 He also overlaid the temple with gold the beams, the thresholds, and its walls and doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.
8 Then he built the Most Holy Place; the length corresponded to the width of the temple twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits; he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. 9 The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He also overlaid the upper chambers with gold.
10 In the Most Holy Place he made two cherubim of sculptured work, and overlaid them with gold. 11 The wings of the cherubim were twenty cubits in overall length; one wing of the one cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the temple, and the other wing was likewise five cubits, touching the wing of the other cherub. 12 The wing of the other cherub was five cubits, touching the wall of the temple, and the other wing, five cubits long also, was joined to the wing of the other cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits; and they stood on their feet and faced the main hall.
14 He made the curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarn and fine linen, and wove cherubim into it.
15 In the front of the temple he made two pillars, each thirty-five cubits high, with a capital on top that was five cubits. 16 He made interwoven chains as in the sanctuary and put them on the tops of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates, and put them on the chains. 17 Then he set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right, the other on the left. He named the one on the right Jachin, and the one on the left Boaz.