2 Chronicles 2

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

²And Solomon counted seventy thousand men as burden-bearers and eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as supervisors over them.

³Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, 'As you dealt with David my father and sent him cedar logs to build himself a house to dwell in,'

⁴Behold, I am building a house for the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, to burn before him incense of spices, and the regular bread arrangement continually, and burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths and the new moons and the appointed feasts of the Lord our God — this is an obligation for Israel forever.

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

⁶But who has the ability to build a house for him, since the heavens, even the heaven of heavens, cannot contain him? And who am I that I should build a house for him, except to burn incense before him?

⁷Now send me a skilled man to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, purple, crimson, and blue, and who knows how to engrave, to work with the skilled craftsmen who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, whom David my father prepared.

⁸Send me also cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled at cutting timber in Lebanon, and my servants will work with your servants,

⁹and to prepare timber for me in abundance, for the house that I am building is great and wonderful.

¹⁰Now for the woodcutters who fell the timber, I will provide twenty thousand cors of wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.

¹¹Then Huram the king of Tyre answered in writing and sent it to Solomon: 'Because the LORD loves his people, he has made you king over them.'

¹²And Hiram said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth, who has given King David a wise son, endowed with discernment and understanding, who will build a house for the Lord and a house for his kingdom."

¹³Now I am sending a skilled man, endowed with understanding, Huram-abi,

¹⁴the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre. He is skilled in working with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, in purple, blue, fine linen, and crimson, and in engraving every kind of engraving and devising any design that may be assigned to him, together with your skilled workers and the skilled workers of my lord David your father.

¹⁵Now let my lord send to his servants the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine that he promised.

¹⁶We will cut timber from Lebanon, as much as you need, and bring it to you on rafts by sea to Joppa, and you may take it up from there to Jerusalem.

¹⁷Solomon counted all the resident aliens who were in the land of Israel, after the census that David his father had taken, and there were found one hundred fifty thousand and three thousand six hundred.

¹⁸He appointed from them seventy thousand as burden-bearers and eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as supervisors to set the people to work.