1-2. Solomon's workers began building the temple in Jerusalem on the second day of the second month, four years after Solomon had become king of Israel. It was built on Mount Moriah where the Lord had appeared to David at the threshing place that had belonged to Araunah from Jebus.
3. The inside of the temple was twenty-seven metres long and nine metres wide, according to the older standards.
4. Across the front of the temple was a porch nine metres wide and nine metres high. The inside walls of the porch were covered with pure gold.
5. Solomon had the inside walls of the temple's main room panelled first with pine and then with a layer of gold, and he had them decorated with carvings of palm trees and designs that looked like chains.
6. He used precious stones to decorate the temple, and he used gold imported from Parvaim
7. to decorate the ceiling beams, the doors, the door frames, and the walls. Solomon also made the workers carve designs of winged creatures into the walls.
8. The most holy place was nine metres square, and its walls were covered with over twenty tonnes of fine gold.
9. Five hundred and seventy grammes of gold was used to cover the heads of the nails. The walls of the small storage rooms were also covered with gold.
10. Solomon had two statues of winged creatures made to put in the most holy place, and he covered them with gold.
11-13. Each creature had two wings and was four and a half metres from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other wing. Solomon set them next to each other in the most holy place, facing the doorway. Their wings were spread out and reached all the way across the nine-metre room.
14. A curtain was made of fine linen woven with blue, purple, and red wool, and embroidered with designs of winged creatures.
15. Two columns were made for the entrance to the temple. Each one was five and a half metres tall and had a cap on top that was over two metres high.
16. The top of each column was decorated with designs that looked like chains and with a hundred carvings of pomegranates.
17. Solomon had one of the columns placed on the south side of the temple's entrance; it was called Jachin. The other one was placed on the north side of the entrance; it was called Boaz.