The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday June 9, 2020 (NIV)

Solomon Prepares to Build the Temple^(A)

5 King Hiram of Tyre had always been a friend of David's, and when he heard that Solomon had succeeded his father David as king, he sent ambassadors to him. ² Solomon sent back this message to Hiram: ³ “You know that because of the constant wars my father David had to fight against the enemy countries all around him, he could not build a temple for the worship of the Lord his God until the Lord had given him victory over all his enemies. ⁴ But now the Lord my God has given me peace on all my borders. I have no enemies, and there is no danger of attack. ^5 (B)The Lord promised my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will make king after you, will build a temple for me.’ And I have now decided to build that temple for the worship of the Lord my God. ⁶ So send your men to Lebanon to cut down cedars for me. My men will work with them, and I will pay your men whatever you decide. As you well know, my men don't know how to cut down trees as well as yours do.”

⁷ Hiram was extremely pleased when he received Solomon's message, and he said, “Praise the Lord today for giving David such a wise son to succeed him as king of that great nation!” ⁸ Then Hiram sent Solomon the following message: “I have received your message, and I am ready to do what you ask. I will provide the cedars and the pine trees. ⁹ My men will bring the logs down from Lebanon to the sea and will tie them together in rafts to float them down the coast to the place you choose. There my men will untie them, and your men will take charge of them. On your part, I would like you to supply the food for my men.”

¹⁰ So Hiram supplied Solomon with all the cedar and pine logs that he wanted, ¹¹ and Solomon provided Hiram with 100,000 bushels of wheat and 110,000 gallons^[a] of pure olive oil every year to feed his men.

¹² The Lord kept his promise and gave Solomon wisdom. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made a treaty with each other.

¹³ King Solomon drafted 30,000 men as forced labor from all over Israel, ^14 (C)and put Adoniram in charge of them. He divided them into three groups of 10,000 men, and each group spent one month in Lebanon and two months back home. ¹⁵ Solomon also had 80,000 stone cutters in the hill country, with 70,000 men to carry the stones, ¹⁶ and he placed 3,300 foremen in charge of them to supervise their work. ¹⁷ At King Solomon's command they cut fine large stones for the foundation of the Temple. ¹⁸ Solomon's and Hiram's workers and men from the city of Byblos prepared the stones and the timber to build the Temple.

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 Four hundred and eighty years after the people of Israel left Egypt, during the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the second month, the month of Ziv, Solomon began work on the Temple. ² Inside it was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ³ The entrance room was 15 feet deep and 30 feet wide, as wide as the sanctuary itself. ⁴ The walls of the Temple had openings in them, narrower on the outside than on the inside. ⁵ Against the outside walls, on the sides and the back of the Temple, a three-storied annex was built, each story 7½ feet high. ⁶ Each room in the lowest story was 7½ feet wide, in the middle story 9 feet wide, and in the top story 10½ feet wide. The Temple wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without having their beams built into it.

⁷ The stones with which the Temple was built had been prepared at the quarry, so that there was no noise made by hammers, axes, or any other iron tools as the Temple was being built.

⁸ The entrance to the lowest^[b] story of the annex was on the south side of the Temple, with stairs leading up to the second and third stories. ⁹ So King Solomon finished building the Temple. He put in a ceiling made of beams and boards of cedar. ¹⁰ The three-storied annex, each story^[c] 7½ feet high, was built against the outside walls of the Temple, and was joined to them by cedar beams.

¹¹ The Lord said to Solomon, ¹² “If you obey all my laws and commands, I will do for you what I promised your father David. ¹³ I will live among my people Israel in this Temple that you are building, and I will never abandon them.”

¹⁴ So Solomon finished building the Temple.

The Interior Furnishings of the Temple^(D)

¹⁵ The inside walls were covered with cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling, and the floor was made of pine. ^16 (E)An inner room, called the Most Holy Place, was built in the rear of the Temple. It was 30 feet long and was partitioned off by cedar boards reaching from the floor to the ceiling.^{[d] 17} The room in front of the Most Holy Place was 60 feet long. ¹⁸ The cedar panels were decorated with carvings of gourds and flowers; the whole interior was covered with cedar, so that the stones of the walls could not be seen.

¹⁹ In the rear of the Temple an inner room was built, where the Lord's Covenant Box was to be placed. ²⁰ This inner room was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high, all covered with pure gold. The altar was covered with cedar panels.^{[e] 21} The inside of the Temple was covered with gold, and gold chains were placed across the entrance of the inner room, which was also covered with gold. ^22 (F)The whole interior of the Temple was covered with gold, as well as the altar in the Most Holy Place.

^23 (G)Two winged creatures were made of olive wood and placed in the Most Holy Place, each one 15 feet tall. ^24-26 Both were of the same size and shape. Each had two wings, each wing 7½ feet long, so that the distance from one wing tip to the other was 15 feet. ²⁷ They were placed side by side in the Most Holy Place, so that two of their outstretched wings touched each other in the middle of the room, and the other two wings touched the walls. ²⁸ The two winged creatures were covered with gold.

²⁹ The walls of the main room and of the inner room were all decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers. ³⁰ Even the floor was covered with gold.

³¹ A double door made of olive wood was set in place at the entrance of the Most Holy Place; the top of the doorway was a pointed arch. ³² The doors were decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers. The doors, the winged creatures, and the palm trees were covered with gold. ³³ For the entrance to the main room a rectangular doorframe of olive wood was made. ³⁴ There were two folding doors made of pine ³⁵ and decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers, which were evenly covered with gold.

³⁶ An inner court was built in front of the Temple, enclosed with walls which had one layer of cedar beams for every three layers of stone.

³⁷ The foundation of the Temple was laid in the second month, the month of Ziv, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. ³⁸ In the eighth month, the month of Bul, in the eleventh year of Solomon's reign, the Temple was completely finished exactly as it had been planned. It had taken Solomon seven years to build it.

Stephen's Speech

7 The High Priest asked Stephen, “Is this true?”

^2 (A)Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! Before our ancestor Abraham had gone to live in Haran, the God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia ³ and said to him, ‘Leave your family and country and go to the land that I will show you.’ ^4 (B)And so he left his country and went to live in Haran. After Abraham's father died, God made him move to this land where you now live. ^5 (C)God did not then give Abraham any part of it as his own, not even a square foot of ground, but God promised to give it to him, and that it would belong to him and to his descendants. At the time God made this promise, Abraham had no children. ^6 (D)This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will live in a foreign country, where they will be slaves and will be badly treated for four hundred years. ^7 (E)But I will pass judgment on the people that they will serve, and afterward your descendants will come out of that country and will worship me in this place.’ ^8 (F)Then God gave to Abraham the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of the covenant. So Abraham circumcised Isaac a week after he was born; Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons, the famous ancestors of our race.

^9 (G)“Jacob's sons became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him ^10 (H)and brought him safely through all his troubles. When Joseph appeared before the king of Egypt, God gave him a pleasing manner and wisdom, and the king made Joseph governor over the country and the royal household. ^11 (I)Then there was a famine all over Egypt and Canaan, which caused much suffering. Our ancestors could not find any food, ¹² and when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons, our ancestors, on their first visit there. ^13 (J)On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the king of Egypt came to know about Joseph's family. ^14 (K)So Joseph sent a message to his father Jacob, telling him and the whole family, seventy-five people in all, to come to Egypt. ^15 (L)Then Jacob went to Egypt, where he and his sons died. ^16 (M)Their bodies were taken to Shechem, where they were buried in the grave which Abraham had bought from the clan of Hamor for a sum of money.

^17 (N)“When the time drew near for God to keep the promise he had made to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had grown much larger. ¹⁸ At last a king who did not know about Joseph began to rule in Egypt. ^19 (O)He tricked our ancestors and was cruel to them, forcing them to put their babies out of their homes, so that they would die. ^20 (P)It was at this time that Moses was born, a very beautiful child. He was cared for at home for three months, ^21 (Q)and when he was put out of his home, the king's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²² He was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a great man in words and deeds.

^23 (R)“When Moses was forty years old, he decided to find out how his fellow Israelites were being treated. ²⁴ He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his help and took revenge on the Egyptian by killing him. (²⁵ He thought that his own people would understand that God was going to use him to set them free, but they did not understand.) ²⁶ The next day he saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between them. ‘Listen, men,’ he said, ‘you are fellow Israelites; why are you fighting like this?’ ²⁷ But the one who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside. ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. ²⁸ ‘Do you want to kill me, just as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ ^29 (S)When Moses heard this, he fled from Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian. There he had two sons.

In Praise of God's Goodness^[a]

^28 (A)Gossip is spread by wicked people; they stir up trouble and break up friendships.

²⁹ Violent people deceive their friends and lead them to disaster.

³⁰ Watch out for people who grin and wink at you; they have thought of something evil.