¹And Solomon gave instructions to build a house for the name of the Lord and a house for his kingdom. ²And Solomon counted seventy thousand burden bearers, and eighty thousand men to hew in the mountain, and three thousand six hundred superintendents over them. ³And Solomon sent word to Huram king of Tyre and said, “As you did with David my father and sent him cedars to build himself a house to live in, ⁴so I for my part am about to build a house to the name of the Lord my God, to consecrate it to him and to burn aromatic incense before him, and for showbread perpetually, and for burnt offerings in the morning and in the evening, for Sabbaths and for new moons and for festival times of the Lord our God, this being enjoined age-abidingly on Israel. ⁵And the house which I am building is great, because our God is greater than all the gods. ⁶But who retains strength to build him a house? For heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, so who am I that I should build him a house, except to burn incense before him? ⁷So now, send me a man skilled in working with gold and with silver and with copper and with iron and with purple and with crimson and with cerulean blue dye, and who knows how to engrave engravings, to work with skilled men who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father appointed. ⁸And send me cedar and cypress and almug wood from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to fell the trees of Lebanon. And look, my servants will be with your servants, ⁹in order to prepare wood for me in abundance, because the house which I am building will be great, and wondrously so. ¹⁰And look, I will give to the hewers and to the lumberjacks – to your servants – twenty thousand cors of threshed wheat and twenty thousand cors of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.” ¹¹And Huram king of Tyre stated in writing and sent the following to Solomon: “In the Lord's love for his people, he has appointed you king over them.” ¹²Then Huram said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who made heaven and the earth, who has given to King David a wise son who has prudence and intelligence, who will build a house to the Lord, and a house for his kingdom. ¹³So now, I have sent a skilled man who has intelligence, who belonged to Huram my father, ¹⁴the son of a woman who is one of the daughters of Dan, whose father is a Tyrian, who knows how to work with gold and with silver, with copper and with iron, with stone and with wood, with purple and with cerulean blue dye, and with byssus and with crimson, and how to engrave every kind of engraving, and to devise every kind of device which is presented to him, with your skilled men, and the skilled men of my lord David your father. ¹⁵And now what my lord specified may he send to his servants – the wheat and the barley and the oil and the wine – ¹⁶and we will fell trees in Lebanon according to all your needs, and we will bring them to you as rafts by sea to Joppa, whereupon you can bring them up to Jerusalem.” ¹⁷And Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel after the census when David his father counted them, and they were found to be one hundred and fifty-three thousand and six hundred in number. ¹⁸And of them he made seventy thousand burden bearers and eighty thousand hewers on the mountain, and three thousand six hundred superintendents to put the people to work.