2 Chronicles 3-4

New Catholic Bible

Chapter 3

Construction of the Temple.^{[a] 1} Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the site that David had chosen, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ² He commenced building it on the second day of the second month of the fourth year of his reign.

³ These are the measurements specified by Solomon for building the house of God. According to the old standard of measurement, its length was sixty cubits and its width was twenty cubits.^{[b] 4} The vestibule was twenty cubits long, spanning the entire breadth of the house of God, and its height was also twenty cubits.

⁵ He overlaid the nave with cypress, which he covered with fine gold and embossed with palms and chains. ⁶ He also adorned the house beautifully with settings of precious stones and with gold from Parvaim. ⁷ Then he overlaid the house with gold, including its beams, its thresholds, its walls, and its doors, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

⁸ He also made the Holy of Holies. Its length, corresponding to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width was also twenty cubits. He overlaid all of it with six hundred talents of fine gold. ⁹ The weight of the gold nails was fifty shekels. He also overlaid the upper chambers with gold.

¹⁰ For the Holy of Holies he made two carved cherubim which were then overlaid with gold. ¹¹ The wings of the cherubim^[c] together had a total span of twenty cubits. A wing of one cherub, five cubits in length, extended to a wall of the building, while the other wing reached out to meet a wing of the other cherub. ¹² Similarly, one wing of the second cherub also extended five cubits to touch the other wall of the building, while its other wing reached out to meet a wing of the first cherub.

¹³ The combined wings of these two cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood with their feet on the ground, facing the nave. ¹⁴ Solomon also made the curtain^[d] of purple, crimson, and blue fabrics and fine linen and embroidered it with winged creatures.

¹⁵ In front of the temple he erected two pillars that totaled thirty-five cubits high, with a capital measuring five cubits on the top of each pillar. ¹⁶ Next he made chains in the form of a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and then he carved one hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. ¹⁷ Finally, he erected the pillars in front of the temple, one on the right and the other on the left. The one on the right he called Jachin, and the one on the left he called Boaz.

Chapter 4

¹ Then Solomon made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high. ² After that, he made the sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, ten cubits from rim to rim, and five cubits high.

³ Under the sea and completely encircling the thirty cubits of its circumference there was a ring of figures of oxen in two rows, ten to the cubit. ⁴ It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The hindquarters of each faced inward, and the sea was set on them. ⁵ It was a hand’s breadth in thickness, and its rim was like that of a cup—lily-shaped. It could hold three thousand baths.^[e]

⁶ He also made ten basins for washing, placing five on the right and five on the left. These were to be employed to rinse what would be used for the burnt offerings. However, the sea was for the priests to wash in.

⁷ Then he made ten lampstands of gold as prescribed and placed them in the temple, five on the right side and five on the left. ⁸ He also made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left, as well as one hundred basins of gold.^[f]

⁹ Next he made the court of the priests and the great courtyard with its gates. After he had overlaid the doors with bronze, ¹⁰ he placed the sea off to the southeast on the right-hand side of the temple.

¹¹ Meanwhile Huram made the pots, the shovels, and the basins. He thus completed all the work he had undertaken for King Solomon on the temple of God: ¹² the two pillars, the bowls, and the two capitals that were on the top of the pillars; the two sets of filigree to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the top of the pillars; ¹³ the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, with two rows of pomegranates for each network, to cover two bowl-shaped capitals surmounting the two pillars; ¹⁴ the ten stands and the basins on the stands; ¹⁵ the one sea and the twelve oxen that supported it; ¹⁶ likewise the pots, the shovels, and the basins—all of these articles Huram-abi made of burnished bronze cast for King Solomon for the house of the Lord.

¹⁷ Then the king had them cast in the foundry between Succoth and Zeredah in the plain of the Jordan. ¹⁸ Solomon made all these objects in great quantities, and as a result, the weight of the bronze was not determined.

¹⁹ Solomon had all of these articles made for the Lord God: the golden altar, the tables for the bread of the Presence, ^20 [g]the lampstands and their lamps of pure gold to burn before the inner sanctuary as prescribed; ²¹ the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs of the purest gold; ²² the snuffers, the bowls, the ladles, and the firepans of pure gold. As for the entrance to the temple, the inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors to the nave of the temple were of gold.