1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.

2 He also made the Sea of cast metal. It was circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim, five cubits in height, and thirty cubits in circumference. 3Below the rim, figures of oxen encircled it, ten per cubit all the way around the Sea, cast in two rows as a part of the Sea.

4 The Sea stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The Sea rested on them, with all their hindquarters toward the center. 5It was a handbreadth thick, and its rim was fashioned like the brim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It could hold three thousand baths.

6 He also made ten basins for washing and placed five on the south side and five on the north. The parts of the burnt offering were rinsed in them, but the priests used the Sea for washing.

7 He made ten gold lampstands according to their specifications and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north.

8 Additionally, he made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the south side and five on the north. He also made a hundred gold bowls.

9 He made the courtyard of the priests and the large court with its doors, and he overlaid the doors with bronze.

10 He put the Sea on the south side, at the southeast corner.

11 Additionally, Huram made the pots, shovels, and sprinkling bowls.

So Huram finished the work that he had undertaken for King Solomon in the house of God:

All these objects that Huram-abi made for King Solomon for the house of the Lord were of polished bronze. 17The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zeredah. 18Solomon made all these articles in such great abundance that the weight of the bronze could not be determined.

19 Solomon also made all the furnishings for the house of God:

1 So all the work that Solomon had performed for the house of the Lord was completed.

Then Solomon brought in the items his father David had dedicated— the silver, the gold, and all the furnishings— and he placed them in the treasuries of the house of God.

2 At that time Solomon assembled in Jerusalem the elders of Israel— all the tribal heads and family leaders of the Israelites — to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Zion, the City of David. 3So all the men of Israel came together to the king at the feast in the seventh month.

4 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, 5and they brought up the ark and the Tent of Meeting with all its sacred furnishings. The Levitical priests carried them up.

6 There, before the ark, King Solomon and the whole congregation of Israel who had assembled with him sacrificed so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

7 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, beneath the wings of the cherubim. 8For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its poles.

9 The poles of the ark extended far enough that their ends were visible from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are there to this day.

10 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of Egypt.

11 Now all the priests who were present had consecrated themselves regardless of their divisions. And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, 12all the Levitical singers — Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and relatives — stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps, and lyres, accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. 13The trumpeters and singers joined together to praise and thank the Lord with one voice. They lifted up their voices, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and musical instruments, in praise to the Lord:

And the temple, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud 14so that the priests could not stand there to minister because of the cloud. For the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

1 Then Solomon declared:

3 And as the whole assembly of Israel stood there, the king turned around and blessed them all 4and said:

1 Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

4 Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. 6But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

7 What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead.

9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10So I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death. 11For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.

12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.