1 Kings 6–7
1 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Ziv (which is the second month), he began to build the house of the Lord.
2 The house which King Solomon built for the Lord had a length of sixty cubits, a width of twenty cubits, and a height of thirty cubits. 3 The porch in front of the temple was twenty cubits in length, the same as the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house. 4 He made beveled windows for the house. 5 He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both of the temple and of the inner sanctuary, and he made side chambers all around. 6 The lowest story was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. For around the outside of the house, he made offsets on the wall so that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.
7 The house was built of stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.
8 The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house, and it had winding stairs into the middle chamber and out of the middle into the third. 9 So he built the house and finished it and covered it with beams and boards of cedar. 10 Then he built chambers against the whole house, five cubits high, and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.
11 Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying, 12 “Concerning this house which you are building, if you will walk in My statutes and execute My judgments and keep all My commandments and walk in them, then I will carry out My word with you, which I spoke to David your father, 13 and I will dwell among the people of Israel and will not forsake My people Israel.”
14 So Solomon built the house and finished it. 15 He built the interior walls of the house with boards of cedar. From the floor of the house to the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with planks of fir. 16 He lined twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the floor and the walls, with boards of cedar, and he even lined them within, even the inner sanctuary and the Most Holy Place. 17 The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long. 18 The cedar of the house within had carvings of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar. There was no stone seen.
19 He prepared the inner sanctuary in the inner part of the house in order to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 So Solomon overlaid the interior of the house with pure gold, and he made a partition with gold chains in front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold. 22 He overlaid the whole house with gold as well as the whole altar that was by the inner sanctuary.
23 Within the inner sanctuary, he made two cherubim from olive wood, each ten cubits high. 24 One wing of the cherub was five cubits, and the other wing was also five cubits. From the furthest part of the one wing to the furthest part of the other was ten cubits. 25 The other cherub was ten cubits. Both the cherubim were the same shape and size. 26 The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub. 27 He set the cherubim within the inner sanctuary, and they stretched forth the wings of the cherubim, so that the wing of the one touched the one wall and the wing of the other cherub touched the other wall, and their wings touched one another in the middle of the house. 28 He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29 He carved all the walls of the house with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers both inside and out. 30 He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, both inside and out.
31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, he made doors of olive wood; the lintel and doorposts were five-sided. 32 The two doors were also made of olive wood. He carved on them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, overlaid them with gold, and spread gold upon the cherubim and upon the palm trees. 33 So also he made for the entrance to the nave four-sided posts of olive wood. 34 The two doors were made from fir tree, with two leaves of each door folding. 35 He carved on them cherubim and palm trees and open flowers and covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work.
36 He built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone and a row of cedar beams.
37 In the fourth year, in the month Ziv, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid, 38 and in the eleventh year, in the month Bul (which is the eighth month), the house was completely finished. All the details and plans were met. So he took seven years to build it.
Chapter 7
1 Solomon was building his own house for thirteen years, and he finished all his house. 2 He built the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Its length was a hundred cubits, and its width was fifty cubits, and its height was thirty cubits, built on four rows of cedar pillars with cedar beams upon the pillars. 3 It was covered with cedar over the top of the beams, which sat upon forty-five pillars, fifteen in a row. 4 There were window frames in three rows and window opposite window in three tiers. 5 All the doors and posts were rectangular with the openings facing each other in three tiers.
6 He made a porch of pillars with a length of fifty cubits and a breadth of thirty cubits. There was a porch in front with pillars, and a canopy in front of them.
7 Then he made a porch for the throne, from which he would judge, and called it the Hall of Judgment. It was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other. 8 His own house where he lived, in the other court back of the hall, was similar in style. Solomon also made a house like this for Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he had taken as a wife.
9 All these were built with costly stones, cut to size and sawed with saws on the inside and outside, from the foundation up to the coping, throughout the outside toward the great court. 10 The foundation was of large, costly stones, stones of ten and eight cubits in size. 11 Above were costly stones cut to size, along with cedars. 12 The great court was enclosed with three rows of hewed stones and a row of cedar beams. So were the inner court of the house of the Lord and the porch of the house.
13 Now King Solomon sent and called Huram out of Tyre. 14 He was the son of a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre who worked in bronze, and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill to make all sorts of items in bronze. So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work.
15 He cast two pillars of bronze eighteen cubits high each and twelve cubits in circumference. 16 He made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. 17 He made lattices of checker work with wreaths of chainwork for the capitals on top of the pillars: seven for one capital and seven for the other. 18 Likewise he made pomegranates in two rows around the one latticework to cover the capital that was on the top of the pillar, and he did the same for the other capital. 19 The capitals that were on top of the pillars in the porch were four cubits high and in the shape of lilies. 20 The capitals on top of the two pillars also had pomegranates above, by the convex surface which was next to the latticework. There were two hundred pomegranates in rows encircling each capital. 21 He set up the pillars in the porch of the temple. He set up the right pillar and called it Jakin, and he set up the left pillar and called it Boaz. 22 The tops of the pillars were in the shape of lilies. This completed the work on the pillars.
23 He made a cast metal sea, ten cubits from one side to the other. It was round and had a height of five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits encircled it. 24 Under the brim all the way around there were gourds, ten in a cubit. When it was cast, the gourds were placed in two rows going all the way around it.
25 It stood on top of twelve oxen with three facing north, three facing toward the west, three facing toward the south, and three facing toward the east. The sea was set on them, and their hindquarters were turned inward. 26 It was a hand-breadth thick, and the brim was made similar to the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold two thousand baths.
27 He made ten stands out of bronze, each measuring four cubits long, four cubits wide, and three cubits high. 28 The work of the stands looked like this: They had panels, and the panels were set in the frames. 29 And on the panels that were set in the frames were lions, oxen, and cherubim. On the frames both above and below the lions and oxen, there were wreaths of beveled work. 30 Every stand had four bronze wheels and axles of bronze, and at the four corners were supports for a basin. The supports were cast with wreaths at the side of each. 31 Its opening was within a crown that projected upward one cubit. Its opening was round, like the work of a pedestal, a cubit and a half deep. At its opening there were engravings, and its panels were four-sided, not round. 32 Underneath the panels were four wheels, and the axles of the wheels were joined to the stand, and the height of a wheel was a cubit and a half. 33 The wheels worked like chariot wheels in that their axles and rims and spokes and hubs were all cast metal.
34 There were four supports for the four corners of each stand, and the supports were part of one piece with the stand itself. 35 On the top of the stand, there was a round band half a cubit high, and on the top of the stand its stays and its panels were of one piece with it. 36 On the surface of its stays and on its panels, he engraved cherubim, lions, and palm trees, according to the space of each, with wreaths all around. 37 In this way he made the ten stands, with them all having the same shape, measure, and size.
38 Then he made ten basins of bronze, with each basin able to hold forty baths, each being four cubits. Upon every one of the ten stands sat one basin. 39 He put five stands on the right side of the house, and five on the left side of the house. He set the sea on the right side of the house toward the southeast. 40 Huram also made the pots, the shovels, and the basins.
So Huram finished all the work in making items for King Solomon for use in the house of the Lord: 41 the two pillars, the two bowls of the capitals that were on the top of the two pillars, the two latticeworks to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were upon the top of the pillars; 42 and the four hundred pomegranates for the two latticeworks, two rows of pomegranates for each latticework, to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were on the pillars; 43 the ten stands and ten basins on the stands; 44 one sea and twelve oxen under the sea; 45 the pots, the shovels, and the basins.
All these vessels that Huram made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were of burnished bronze. 46 In the plain of the Jordan the king cast them, in the clay ground between Sukkoth and Zarethan. 47 Solomon left all the vessels unweighed because there were so many. The weight of the bronze was also never measured.
48 Solomon made all the vessels that were needed for the house of the Lord: the altar of gold, the table of gold on which was showbread, 49 the candlesticks of pure gold, five on the right side and five on the left before the inner sanctuary; the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs, of gold; 50 the cups, snuffers, basins, dishes for incense, fire pans, of pure gold; the sockets for the doors of the innermost part of the house, the Most Holy Place, and for the doors of the nave of the temple, of gold.
51 All the work that King Solomon made for the house of the Lord was completed. And Solomon brought in the things which David his father had dedicated—the silver, the gold, and the cups—and he put them among the treasures of the house of the Lord.
Luke 20:27–47
27 Some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is any resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, then this man should take the wife and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died childless. 30 The second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31 And then the third took her, and in like manner, all seven died and left no children. 32 Last of all, the woman died also. 33 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”
34 Jesus answered them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 For they cannot die any more, for they are equal to the angels and are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 Now, at the bush, even Moses pointed out that the dead are raised when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. For to Him all live.”
39 Some of the scribes said, “Teacher, You have spoken well.” 40 After that they dared not ask Him any question at all.
41 Then Jesus said to them, “How do they say that Christ is David’s Son? 42 David himself says in the Book of Psalms,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
43 until I make Your enemies
Your footstool.”’
44 David therefore calls Him ‘Lord.’ How is He then his Son?”
45 Then as all the people heard, He said to His disciples, 46 “Beware of the scribes who desire to walk in long robes and who love greetings in the marketplaces and the prominent seats in the synagogues and the seats of honor at banquets, 47 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive greater condemnation.”