The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Wednesday June 9, 2021 (NIV)

Wood and stone for the temple

5 ^[a] Because King Hiram^[b] of Tyre was loyal to David throughout his rule, Hiram sent his servants to Solomon when he heard that Solomon had become king after his father. ² Solomon sent the following message to Hiram: ³ “You know that my father David wasn’t able to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God. This was because of the enemies that fought him on all sides until the Lord put them under the soles of his feet. ⁴ Now the Lord my God has given me peace on every side, without enemies or misfortune. ⁵ So I’m planning to build a temple for the name of the Lord my God, just as the Lord indicated to my father David, ‘I will give you a son to follow you on your throne. He will build the temple for my name.’ ⁶ Now give the order and have the cedars of Lebanon cut down for me. My servants will work with your servants. I’ll pay your servants whatever price you set, because you know we have no one here who is skilled in cutting wood like the Sidonians.”

⁷ Hiram was thrilled when he heard Solomon’s message. He said, “Today the Lord is blessed because he has given David a wise son who is in charge of this great people.” ⁸ Hiram sent word back to Solomon: “I have heard your message to me. I will do as you wish with the cedar and pinewood. ⁹ My servants will bring the wood down the Lebanon Mountains to the sea. I’ll make rafts out of them and float them on the sea to the place you specify. There I’ll dismantle them, and you can carry them away. Now, as for what you must do for me in return, I ask you to provide for my royal house.”

¹⁰ So Hiram gave Solomon all the cedar and pinewood that he wanted. ¹¹ In return, Solomon gave an annual gift to Hiram of twenty thousand kors^[c] of wheat to eat, and twenty thousand kors of pure oil for his palace use. ¹² Now the Lord made Solomon wise, just as he had promised. Solomon and Hiram made a covenant and had peace.

¹³ King Solomon called up a work gang of thirty thousand workers from all over Israel. ¹⁴ He sent ten thousand to work in Lebanon each month. Then they would spend two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the work gang. ¹⁵ Solomon had 70,000 laborers and 80,000 stonecutters in the highlands. ¹⁶ This doesn’t include Solomon’s 3,300 supervisors in charge of the work, who had oversight over the laborers. ¹⁷ At the king’s command, they quarried huge stones of the finest quality in order to lay the temple’s foundation with carefully cut stone. ¹⁸ The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram, along with those of Byblos, prepared the timber and the stones for the construction of the temple.

Solomon builds the temple

6 In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites left Egypt, in the month of Ziv, the second month,^[d] in the fourth year of Solomon’s rule over Israel, he built the Lord’s temple. ² The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ³ The porch in front of the temple’s main hall was thirty feet long. It ran across the whole width of the temple and extended fifteen feet in front of the temple. ⁴ He made recessed and latticed windows^[e] for the temple ⁵ and built side rooms against the temple walls around both the main hall and the most holy place. ⁶ The lower walls were seven and a half feet wide. At the second floor the walls were nine feet wide, and at the third floor they were ten and a half feet wide. He made niches around the outside of the temple so the beams wouldn’t be inserted into the temple walls.^{[f] 7} When the temple was built, they did all the stonecutting at the quarry. No hammers, axes, or any iron tools were heard in the temple during its construction. ⁸ The door to the stairs was at the south side of the temple. Winding stairs went up to the second floor and from there to the third floor. ⁹ He completed the temple with a roof of cedar beams and cross-planks.^{[g] 10} Then he built the side rooms all around the temple. They were seven and a half feet high. He attached them to the temple with cedarwood.

¹¹ The Lord’s word came to Solomon, ¹² Regarding this temple that you are building: If you follow my laws, enact my regulations, and keep all my commands faithfully, then I will fulfill for you my promise that I made to your father David. ¹³ I will live among the Israelites. I won’t abandon my people Israel.

¹⁴ So Solomon constructed the temple and completed it. ¹⁵ He built the walls within the temple with cedar planks, paneled from the floor to the ceiling. He overlaid the floor of the temple with pine planks. ¹⁶ At the back of the temple he built thirty feet of cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling. Solomon built the inner sanctuary, the most holy place. ¹⁷ In front of this, the main hall was sixty feet. ¹⁸ The cedar inside the temple was carved with gourds and blossoming flowers. The whole thing was cedar. No stone was seen. ¹⁹ He set up the inner sanctuary inside the temple so that he could put the chest containing the Lord’s covenant there. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was thirty feet in length, width, and height. Solomon overlaid it with pure gold and covered the altar with cedar.^{[h] 21} Solomon covered the temple’s interior with pure gold. He placed gold chains in front of the inner sanctuary and covered it with gold. ²² He overlaid the whole temple inside with gold until the temple was completely covered. He covered the whole altar that was in the inner sanctuary with gold. ²³ He made two winged creatures of olive wood for the inner sanctuary, each fifteen feet high. ²⁴ The wings of the first winged creature were each seven and a half feet long. It was fifteen feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. ²⁵ The second winged creature also measured fifteen feet. Both winged creatures had identical measurements and form. ²⁶ The height of both winged creatures was fifteen feet. ²⁷ Solomon placed the winged creatures inside the temple. Their wings spread out so that the wing of the one touched one wall and the wing of the other touched the other wall. In the middle of the temple, the wings of the two winged creatures touched each other. ²⁸ He covered the winged creatures with gold.

²⁹ Solomon carved all the walls of the temple—inner and outer rooms—with engravings of winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers. ³⁰ He also covered the floor of the temple with gold, in both the inner and the outer rooms. ³¹ He made the doors of the inner sanctuary from olive wood and carved the doorframes with five recesses.^{[i] 32} He overlaid the two olive-wood doors with gold-plated carvings of winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers. ³³ He made the door of the main hall with doorframes of olive wood with four recesses.^{[j] 34} The two doors of pinewood each pivoted on a socket. ³⁵ Solomon carved winged creatures, palm trees, and blossoming flowers, and covered them with gold. ³⁶ He built the inner courtyard with three rows of cut stone followed by one row of trimmed cedar.

³⁷ Solomon laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple in the fourth year in the month of Ziv.^{[k] 38} He finished the temple in all its details and measurements in the eleventh year during the eighth month, the month of Bul.^[l] He built it in seven years.

7 The high priest asked, “Are these accusations true?”

² Stephen responded, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran. ³ God told him, ‘Leave your homeland and kin, and go to the land that I will show you.’^{[a] 4} So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God had him resettle in this land where you now live. ⁵ God didn’t give him an inheritance here, not even a square foot of land. However, God did promise to give the land as his possession to him and to his descendants, even though Abraham had no child. ⁶ God put it this way: His descendants will be strangers in a land that belongs to others, who will enslave them and abuse them for four hundred years.^{[b] 7} And I will condemn the nation they serve as slaves, God said, and afterward they will leave^[c] that land and serve me in this place. ⁸ God gave him the covenant confirmed through circumcision. Accordingly, eight days after Isaac’s birth, Abraham circumcised him. Isaac did the same with Jacob, and Jacob with the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him into slavery in Egypt. God was with him, however, ¹⁰ and rescued him from all his troubles. The grace and wisdom he gave Joseph were recognized by Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole palace. ¹¹ A famine came upon all Egypt and Canaan, and great hardship came with it. Our ancestors had nothing to eat. ¹² When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there for the first time. ¹³ During their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. ¹⁴ Joseph sent for his father Jacob and all his relatives—seventy-five in all—and invited them to live with him. ¹⁵ So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. ¹⁶ Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a certain sum of money from Hamor’s children, who lived in Shechem.

¹⁷ “When it was time for God to keep the promise he made to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly expanded. ¹⁸ But then another king rose to power over Egypt who didn’t know anything about Joseph.^{[d] 19} He exploited our people and abused our ancestors. He even forced them to abandon their newly born babies so they would die. ²⁰ That’s when Moses was born. He was highly favored by God, and for three months his parents cared for him in their home. ²¹ After he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted and cared for him as though he were her own son. ²² Moses learned everything Egyptian wisdom had to offer, and he was a man of powerful words and deeds.

²³ “When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his family, the Israelites. ²⁴ He saw one of them being wronged so he came to his rescue and evened the score by killing the Egyptian. ²⁵ He expected his own kin to understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn’t. ²⁶ The next day he came upon some Israelites who were caught up in an argument. He tried to make peace between them by saying, ‘You are brothers! Why are you harming each other?’ ²⁷ The one who started the fight against his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who appointed you as our leader and judge? ²⁸ Are you planning to kill me like you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’^{[e] 29} When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he lived as an immigrant and had two sons.

Psalm 127

A pilgrimage song. Of Solomon.