(26)  12.  יהוה gave Solomon wisdom, as he promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty together.

(27)  13. King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.

(28)  14. He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses; for a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home; and Adoniram was over the men subject to forced labor.

(29)  15. Solomon had seventy thousand who bore burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains;

(30)  16. besides Solomon’s chief officers who were over the work, three thousand and three hundred, who ruled over the people who labored in the work.

(31)  17. The king commanded, and they cut out large stones, costly stones, to lay the foundation of the house with worked stone.

(32)  18. Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites cut them, and prepared the timber and the stones to build the house.

Chapter 6

1. In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build  יהוה ’s house.

2. The house which king Solomon built for  יהוה had a length of sixty cubits,  and its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits.

3. The porch in front of the temple of the house had a length of twenty cubits, which was along the width of the house. Ten cubits was its width in front of the house.

4. He made windows of fixed lattice work for the house.

5. Against the wall of the house, he built floors all around, against the walls of the house all around, both of the temple and of the inner sanctuary; and he made side rooms all around.

6. The lowest floor was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around, that the beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.

7. The house, when it was under construction, was built of stone prepared at the quarry; and no hammer or ax or any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was under construction.

8. The door for the middle side rooms was in the right side of the house. They went up by winding stairs into the middle floor, and out of the middle into the third.

9. So he built the house, and finished it; and he covered the house with beams and planks of cedar.

10. He built the floors all along the house, each five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timbers of cedar.

11.  יהוה ’s word came to Solomon, saying,

12. “Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, and execute my ordinances, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.

13. I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.”

ETZ CHAIM

It is a tree of life for those who cling to it, and those who uphold it are happy.  Its ways are pleasant, and all of its paths peaceful.

Return us to you, Lord, so that we shall return, renew our days as of old.