CHAPTER 2

¹And Solomon resolved to build a house for the LORD’s name and a house for his kingship. And Solomon gathered seventy thousand porters in number and eighty thousand quarriers in the hill country and twelve thousand horsemen and, directing them, three thousand six hundred. ²And Solomon sent to Huram king of Tyre, saying, “As you did with David my father, sending him cedarwood for him to build himself a house in which to dwell, ³look, I am about to build a house for the LORD my God to consecrate to Him, to burn before Him fragrant incense and the perpetual bread in rows, and burnt offerings for morning and for evening, for sabbaths and for new moons and for the LORD’s festivals, and this is upon Israel forever. ⁴And the house that I am about to build shall be great, for greater is our God than all gods. ⁵And who can muster strength to build Him a house? For the heavens and the heavens beyond the heavens cannot contain Him, and who am I that I should build for Him save to burn incense before Him? ⁶And now, send me a skilled man to work in gold and in silver and in crimson and in purple and in indigo and who knows how to engrave with the skilled men who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem whom my father David readied. ⁷And send me cedarwood, cypress, and algum wood from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut down the Lebanon trees, and, look, my servants shall be with your servants ⁸to ready for me wood in abundance, for the house that I am about to build shall be wondrously great. ⁹And, look, for the woodsmen, for the tree-fellers, I have set aside as provision for your servants twenty thousand kors of wheat, twenty thousand kors of barley, and twenty thousand bats of wine and twenty thousand bats of oil.” ¹⁰And Huram king of Tyre said in writing and sent to Solomon, “In the LORD’s love of His people He has set you over them as king.” ¹¹And Huram said, “Blessed is the LORD, God of Israel, Who made the heavens and the earth, Who gave King David a wise son, possessing insight and discernment, who will build a house for the LORD and a house for his kingship. ¹²And now, I have sent a skilled man, Huram my master craftsman, ¹³the son of a woman of the Danite daughters, and his father is a Tyrian man, knowing how to work in gold and in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone and in wood, in crimson, in indigo, in fine linen, and in purple, to engrave and to do every plan that will be given him with your skilled men of my master David your father. ¹⁴And now, the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine of which my master spoke, let them be sent to your servants. ¹⁵And we on our part shall cut down the trees from Lebanon according to all your needs and bring them to you as rafts on the sea to Jaffa, and you shall bring them up to Jerusalem.” ¹⁶And Solomon made a count of all the sojourning men who were in the land of Israel after the count that David his father had made, and they came to one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred. ¹⁷And he made of them seventy thousand porters and eighty thousand quarriers in the hill country and three thousand six hundred directing the people’s work.