He made a brazen altar, too, twenty cubits in length and width, ten in height.

And he cast a great round basin ten cubits from brim to brim, five cubits high, and with a girth of thirty cubits.

It rested on figures of oxen, and without, a chain of moulding ran round its belly in two rows.

The oxen were cast in metal, and supported the basin, twelve of them, three facing north, three west, three south, three east, with the basin so resting on them that their hind-quarters were hidden beneath it.

The basin was a palm’s breadth thick and its brim curved as the brim of a cup does, or of an open lily; it held ninety-six tuns.

He also made ten smaller basins, and put five on the right, five on the left, for the washing of all that was to be offered in burnt-sacrifice; in the great basin the priests themselves washed.✻

Within the temple were ten golden lamp-stands, of a prescribed pattern, five to the right and five to the left,

and ten tables disposed in the same way. And there were a hundred goblets, all of gold.

There were precincts, too, for the priests, and a great court; the doors of this court were covered with bronze.

The great basin was put on the right, towards the south-east.

Pot and fork and bowl Hiram made, and all that the king needed for the service of the Lord’s temple;

pillar and soffit and capital, and net-work over capital and soffit;

four hundred figured pomegranates, and two lengths of net-work pattern, two rows of pomegranates to each length of net-work, draped over capital and soffit alike.

He made stands, and smaller basins for the stands to carry,

the large basin, with the twelve oxen beneath it,

and pot and fork and bowl besides all else. All such ornaments for the Lord’s house did Hiram, king Solomon’s master craftsman, fashion out of the purest bronze;

the king had them cast in the clay soil of the Jordan valley, between Socoth and Saredatha;

a great multitude of them, so that the weight of bronze was never counted or known.

Other appurtenances, too, of the Lord’s house must Solomon make; the golden altar, and the golden tables on which the hallowed loaves were set out,

the lamp-stand with its lamps, all of pure gold, ready to burn in due course before the shrine,

and the flowered bosses for them, and the lamps themselves, and the tongs, of pure gold too.

Nothing but must be made of the purest gold, incense-boat and censer and bowl and spoon. Carved doors within, leading to the shrine, temple doors without, alike were plated with gold. Thus Solomon completed all the work needed for the service of the Lord’s house.✻