The Holy Bible – Knox Translation
The Second Book of Paralipomena
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Chapter 3
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1
Solomon, then, set about the building of the Lord’s house, there on mount Moria, the place of David’s vision, where David had bought the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
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It was in the second month of his fourth year as king that he began building,
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and the foundations he laid for the Lord’s house, using the old cubit measure, were sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide.
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In front was a porch twenty cubits long, to match the width of the temple, and (a hundred and) twenty cubits high,✻ the gilding within was of the purest gold.
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The main building was faced with planks of pine, that had plates of fine gold attached to them, and it had a pattern of palm branches and chains interlaced;
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its floor was laid in precious marble, nobly patterned.
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The whole building, beam and pillar and wall and doorway, was faced with none but the purest gold, and on the walls of it were carvings of cherubim.
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He made, too, an inner shrine, twenty cubits long like the width of the main building, and twenty cubits wide. Some six hundred talents of gold were used in the facing of it;
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the very nails were of gold, each of fifty sicles’ weight; even the upper rooms were faced with gold.
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Within the inner shrine stood two carved cherubs, all plated with gold;
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the four wings of them had twenty cubits’ stretch,
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either touching the wall with one of its wings, five cubits long, and its fellow cherub with the other.
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Thus, with outspread wings both of them, they occupied the whole space of twenty cubits; upright they stood on their feet, with their faces turned towards the outer building.
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A veil, too, he made, of fine linen thread twined with threads of blue, purple and scarlet, with a tapestry of cherubs.
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And before the doors of the temple he set up two pillars thirty-five cubits high, with capitals of five cubits;
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and he made chains (within the inner shrine) which he hung round the capitals, each interspersed with a hundred figured pomegranates.✻
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At the very entrance of the temple he set up these pillars, one on the right, to which he gave the name of Jachin, and one on the left, to which he gave the name of Booz.
