2 Chronicles
2
- Solomon gave orders to build a temple for
the Name of the LORD and a royal palace for himself.
- He conscripted seventy thousand men as carriers
and eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hills and thirty-six hundred as
foremen over them.
- Solomon sent this message to Hiram king
of Tyre: "Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you
sent him cedar to build a palace to live in.
- Now I am about to build a temple for the
Name of the LORD my God and to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense
before him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making
burnt offerings every morning and evening and on Sabbaths and New Moons and
at the appointed feasts of the LORD our God. This is a lasting ordinance for
Israel.
- "The temple I am going to build will
be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.
- But who is able to build a temple for him,
since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then
am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before
him ?
- "Send me, therefore, a man skilled
to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue
yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem
with my skilled craftsmen, whom my father David provided.
- "Send me also cedar, pine and algum
logs from Lebanon, for I know that your men are skilled in cutting timber
there. My men will work with yours
- to provide me with plenty of lumber, because
the temple I build must be large and magnificent.
- I will give your servants, the woodsmen
who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of ground wheat, twenty thousand
cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine and twenty thousand baths of
olive oil."
- Hiram king of Tyre replied by letter to
Solomon: "Because the LORD loves his people, he has made you their king."
- And Hiram added: "Praise be to the
LORD, the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth! He has given King David
a wise son, endowed with intelligence and discernment, who will build a temple
for the LORD and a palace for himself.
- "I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man
of great skill,
- whose mother was from Dan and whose father
was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron,
stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen.
He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any design given
to him. He will work with your craftsmen and with those of my lord, David
your father.
- "Now let my lord send his servants
the wheat and barley and the olive oil and wine he promised,
- and we will cut all the logs from Lebanon
that you need and will float them in rafts by sea down to Joppa. You can then
take them up to Jerusalem."
- Solomon took a census of all the aliens
who were in Israel, after the census his father David had taken; and they
were found to be 153,600.
- He assigned 70,000 of them to be carriers
and 80,000 to be stonecutters in the hills, with 3,600 foremen over them to
keep the people working.
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