A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
1 Kings 6
Chapter summary coming soon.
Verse 1. In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD.
Verse 2. The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.
Verse 3. The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits in front of the temple.
Verse 4. He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple.
Verse 5. Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms.
Verse 6. The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.
Verse 7. The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.
Verse 8. The entrance to the bottom floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor.
Verse 9. So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar.
Verse 10. He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar.
Verse 11. Then the word of the LORD came to Solomon, saying:
Verse 12. “As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David.
Verse 13. And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.”
Verse 14. So Solomon built the temple and finished it.
Verse 15. He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress boards.
Verse 16. He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place.
Verse 17. And the main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.
Verse 18. The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.
Verse 19. Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there.
Verse 20. The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.
Verse 21. So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold.
Verse 22. So he overlaid with gold the whole interior of the temple, until everything was completely finished. He also overlaid with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
Verse 23. In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, each ten cubits high, out of olive wood.
Verse 24. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing was five cubits long as well. So the full wingspan was ten cubits.
Verse 25. The second cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same size and shape,
Verse 26. and the height of each cherub was ten cubits.
Verse 27. And he placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple. Since their wings were spread out, the wing of the first cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the second cherub touched the other wall, and in the middle of the room their wingtips touched.
Verse 28. He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.
Verse 29. Then he carved the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.
Verse 30. And he overlaid the temple floor with gold in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.
Verse 31. For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts.
Verse 32. The double doors were made of olive wood, and he carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.
Verse 33. In the same way he made four-sided doorposts of olive wood for the sanctuary entrance.
Verse 34. The two doors were made of cypress wood, and each had two folding panels.
Verse 35. He carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.
Verse 36. Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.
Verse 37. The foundation of the house of the LORD was laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, in the month of Ziv.
Verse 38. In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years.