The Daily Audio Bible

Preparations for Building the Temple^(A)

5 ^[a]King Hiram of Tyre sent his officials to Solomon when he heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father. Hiram had always been David’s friend.

² Solomon sent word to Hiram, by saying, ³ “You know that my father David was surrounded by war. He couldn’t build a temple for the name of the Lord our God until the Lord let him defeat his enemies. ⁴ But the Lord my God has surrounded me with peace. I have no rival and no trouble. ⁵ Now I’m thinking of building a temple for the name of the Lord my God as the Lord spoke to my father David: ‘Your son, whom I will put on your throne to succeed you, will build a temple for my name.’ ⁶ So order men to cut down cedars from Lebanon for me. My workers will work with your workers. I will pay you whatever wages you ask for your workers. You know we don’t have any skilled lumberjacks like those from Sidon.”

⁷ Hiram was very glad to hear what Solomon had said. Hiram responded, “May the Lord be praised today. He has given David a wise son to rule this great nation.”

⁸ Hiram sent men to Solomon to say, “I’ve received the message you sent me. I will do everything you want in regard to the cedar and cypress logs. ⁹ My workers will bring logs from Lebanon to the sea, and I will have them make them into rafts to go by sea to any place you specify. There I will have them taken apart, and you can use them. You can pay me by providing food for my palace.” ¹⁰ So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar and cypress wood he wanted. ¹¹ Solomon gave Hiram 120,000 bushels of wheat and 120,000 gallons of pure olive oil. Solomon paid Hiram this much every year.

¹² The Lord gave Solomon wisdom as he had promised. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made a treaty with one another.

¹³ King Solomon forced 30,000 men from all over Israel to work for him. ¹⁴ He sent a shift of 10,000 men to Lebanon for a month. They would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of forced labor.

¹⁵ Solomon had 70,000 men who carried heavy loads, 70,000 who quarried stone in the mountains, ¹⁶ and 3,300 foremen who were in charge of the workers. ¹⁷ The king commanded them to quarry large, expensive blocks of stone in order to provide a foundation of cut stone for the temple. ¹⁸ Solomon’s workmen, Hiram’s workmen, and men from Gebal quarried the stone and prepared the logs and stone to build the temple.

The Temple Built in Seven Years^(B)

6 Solomon began to build the Lord’s temple 480 years after Israel left Egypt. He began building in the month of Ziv (the second month) of the fourth year of his reign over Israel. ² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ³ The entrance hall in front of the main room of the temple was the same length as the shorter side of the temple. It extended 15 feet in front of the temple. ⁴ He also made latticed windows for the temple.

⁵ He built an annex containing side rooms all around the temple. This annex was next to the walls of the main building and the inner sanctuary. ⁶ The ⌞interior of⌟ the lowest story of the annex was 7½ feet wide, the second story was 9 feet wide, and the third story was 10½ feet wide. Solomon made ledges all around the temple so that this annex would not be fastened to the walls of the temple.

⁷ The temple was built with stone blocks that were finished at the quarry. No hammer, chisel, or any other iron tool made a sound at the temple construction site.

⁸ The entrance to the first story ^[b] was on the south side of the temple. A staircase went up to the middle story and then to the third story.

⁹ When he had finished building the walls, he roofed the temple with rows of cedar beams and planks. ¹⁰ He built ⌞each story of the⌟ annex 7½ feet high alongside the entire temple. Its cedar beams were attached to the temple.

¹¹ The Lord spoke to Solomon, saying, ¹² “This concerns the temple you are building: If you live by my laws, follow my rules, and keep my commands, I will fulfill the promise I made about you to your father David. ¹³ I will live among the Israelites and never abandon my people.”

¹⁴ When Solomon had finished building the temple’s ⌞frame⌟, ¹⁵ he began to line the inside walls of the temple with cedar boards. He paneled the inside of the temple with wood from floor to ceiling. He covered the floor of the temple with cypress planks.

¹⁶ He sectioned off a 30-foot-long room at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from the floor to the rafters. He built it to serve as an inner room, the most holy place. ¹⁷ The 60-foot-long room at the front of the temple served as the main hall. ¹⁸ Gourds and flowers were carved into the cedar paneling inside the temple. Everything was ⌞covered with⌟ cedar. No stone could be seen.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner room of the temple in order to put the ark of the Lord’s promise there. ²⁰ The inner room was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high. Solomon covered it and the cedar altar with pure gold. ²¹ He covered the inside of the temple with pure gold. He put golden chains across the front of the inner room which was covered with gold. ²² He covered the entire inside of the temple with gold. He also covered the entire altar in the inner room with gold.

²³ In the inner room he made two 15-foot-tall angels ^[c] out of olive wood. ²⁴ Each wing of the angels was 7½ feet long. The distance from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other was 15 feet. ²⁵ Both angels had a 15-foot ⌞wingspan⌟. Both had the same measurements and the same shape. ²⁶ Each was 15 feet high. ²⁷ Solomon put the angels in the inner room of the temple. The wings of the angels extended so that the wing of one of the angels touched the one wall, and the wing of the other touched the other wall. Their remaining wings touched each other in the center of the room. ²⁸ He covered the angels with gold.

²⁹ He carved angels, palm trees, and flowers into the walls all around the inner and outer rooms of the temple. ³⁰ He covered the floor of the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.

³¹ He made doors for the entrance to the inner room out of olive wood. The doorposts had five sides. ³² The two doors were ⌞made out of⌟ olive wood. He carved angels, palm trees, and flowers into them and covered them with gold. The gold was hammered onto the angels and the palm trees.

³³ In the same way he made square doorposts out of olive wood for the temple’s entrance. ³⁴ He made two doors from cypress. Each of the doors had two folding panels. ³⁵ On them he carved angels, palm trees, and flowers. He evenly covered them with gold.

³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three courses of finished stones and a course of finished cedar beams.

³⁷ In the month of Ziv of the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid. ³⁸ In the month of Bul (the eighth month) of the eleventh year ⌞of his reign⌟, the temple was finished according to all its plans and specifications. He spent seven years building it.

Stephen Speaks in His Own Defense

7 Then the chief priest asked Stephen, “Is this true?”

² Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God who reveals his glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia. This happened before Abraham lived in Haran. ³ God told him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives. Go to the land that I will show you.’

⁴ “Then Abraham left the country of Chaldea and lived in the city of Haran. After his father died, God made him move from there to this land where we now live.

⁵ “Yet, God didn’t give Abraham anything in this land to call his own, not even a place to rest his feet. But God promised to give this land to him and to his descendants, even though Abraham didn’t have a child. ⁶ God told Abraham that his descendants would be foreigners living in another country and that the people there would make them slaves and mistreat them for 400 years. ⁷ God also told him, ‘I will punish the people whom they will serve. After that, they will leave that country and worship me here.’

⁸ “God gave Abraham circumcision to confirm his promise.^[a] So when Abraham’s son Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac did the same to his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same to his twelve sons (the ancestors of our tribes).

⁹ “Jacob’s sons were jealous of their brother Joseph. They sold him into slavery, and he was taken to Egypt. But God was with Joseph ¹⁰ and rescued him from all his suffering. When Joseph stood in the presence of Pharaoh (the king of Egypt), God gave Joseph divine favor ^[b] and wisdom so that he became ruler of Egypt and of Pharaoh’s whole palace. ¹¹ Then a famine throughout Egypt and Canaan brought a lot of suffering. Our ancestors couldn’t find any food. ¹² When Jacob heard that Egypt had food, he sent our ancestors there. That was their first trip. ¹³ On the second trip, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. ¹⁴ Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his relatives, 75 people in all. ¹⁵ So Jacob went to Egypt, and he and our ancestors died there. ¹⁶ They were taken to Shechem for burial in the tomb that Abraham purchased in Shechem from Hamor’s sons.

¹⁷ “When the time that God had promised to Abraham had almost come, the number of our people in Egypt had grown very large. ¹⁸ Then a different king, who knew nothing about Joseph, began to rule in Egypt. ¹⁹ This king was shrewd in the way he took advantage of our people. He mistreated our ancestors. He made them abandon their newborn babies outdoors, where they would die.

²⁰ “At that time Moses was born, and he was a very beautiful child. His parents took care of him for three months. ²¹ When Moses was abandoned outdoors, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her son. ²² So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a great man in what he said and did. ²³ When he was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. ²⁴ When he saw an Israelite man being treated unfairly by an Egyptian, he defended the Israelite. He took revenge by killing the Egyptian. ²⁵ Moses thought his own people would understand that God was going to use him to give them freedom. But they didn’t understand. ²⁶ The next day Moses saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between them. He said to them, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you treating each other unfairly?’

²⁷ “But one of the men pushed Moses aside. He asked Moses, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹ After he said that, Moses quickly left Egypt and lived in Midian as a foreigner. In Midian he fathered two sons.

A song by Solomon for going up to worship.