¹Solomon said that he would build a house for the name of Yahweh and a house for his kingdom.

²Solomon counted seventy thousand men as bearers of burdens, and eighty thousand men as stone-cutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as overseers over them.

³Solomon sent to Huram king of Tyre, saying, As you dealt with David my father, and you sent him cedars to build a house for him to dwell in it—

⁴Look, I am building a house for the name of Yahweh my God, to set it apart to him, to turn to smoke before his face the incense of spices, and the continual row of loaves, and burnt offerings for the morning and for the evening, for the sabbaths and for the new moons and for the appointed times of Yahweh our God. This is forever on Israel.

⁵And the house that I am building is great, for our God is greater than all the gods.

⁶And who could retain the strength to build him a house, when the skies and the sky of the skies cannot contain him? And who am I, that I should build him a house, except to turn to smoke before his face?

⁷And now send me a skilled man to work in the gold and in the silver and in the bronze and in the iron, and in the purple and crimson and cerulean, and who knows how to carve engravings, with the skilled people who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father provided.

⁸And send me the wood of cedars, cypress, and sandal-woods from Lebanon, for I know that your slaves know how to cut the wood of Lebanon, and look, my slaves will be with your slaves.

⁹and to prepare for me timber in abundance, for the house that I am building will be great and wondrous.

¹⁰And look, to the wood-cutters, the cutters of the trees, I give your slaves beaten wheat, twenty thousand cors, and barley, twenty thousand cors, and wine, twenty thousand baths, and oil, twenty thousand baths.

¹¹Huram king of Tyre said in a letter that he sent to Solomon, Because of the love of Yahweh for his people, he has made you king over them.

¹²Huram said, Blessed be Yahweh the God of Israel, who made the skies and the land, who gave to David the king a son, wise, knowing insight and understanding, who will build a house for Yahweh and a house for his kingdom.

¹³And now I have sent a skilled man, who knows understanding, to Huram Abi,

¹⁴the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father a Tyrian man, who knows how to work in gold and in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stones and in wood, in purple, in cerulean, in fine linen and in crimson, and to carve every engraving, and to devise every design that is given to him, with your skilled people and the skilled people of my lord David your father.

¹⁵And now, the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine that my lord has promised, let him send to his servants.

¹⁶And we will cut wood from Lebanon as much as you need, and we will bring it to you as rafts over the sea to Joppa, and you will bring it up to Jerusalem.

¹⁷Solomon counted all the men, the sojourners who were in the land of Israel, after the census by which David his father had counted them, and they were found to be a hundred and fifty-three thousand and six hundred.

¹⁸And he appointed from them seventy thousand burden-bearers and eighty thousand stone-hewers in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred overseers to make the people labor.