7. The house was built of stone dressed at the quarry, so that no hammer or ax, no iron tool, was to be heard in the house during its construction.
8. The entrance to the middle story was on the south side of the house; stairs led up to the middle story and from the middle story to the third.
9. When he had finished building the house, it was roofed in with rafters and boards of cedar.
10. He built the substructure five cubits high all along the outside of the house, to which it was joined by cedar beams.
11. The word of the Lord came to Solomon:
12. As to this house you are building—if you walk in my statutes, carry out my ordinances, and observe all my commands, walking in them, I will fulfill toward you my word which I spoke to David your father.
13. I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites and will not forsake my people Israel.
14. When Solomon finished building the house,
15. its inside walls were lined with cedar paneling: he covered the interior with wood from floor to ceiling, and he covered its floor with fir planking.
16. At the rear of the house a space of twenty cubits was set off by cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling, enclosing the inner sanctuary, the holy of holies.
17. The house was forty cubits long, that is, the nave, the part in front.
18. The cedar in the interior of the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers; all was of cedar, and no stone was to be seen.
19. In the innermost part of the house he set up the inner sanctuary to house the ark of the Lord’s covenant.
20. In front of the inner sanctuary (it was twenty cubits long, twenty wide, and twenty high, and he covered it with pure gold), he made an altar of cedar.
21. Solomon covered the interior of the house with pure gold, and he drew golden chains across in front of the inner sanctuary, and covered it with gold.
22. He covered the whole house with gold, until the whole house was done, and the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he covered with gold.