1 Now when Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king in his father’s place, he sent envoys to Solomon; for Hiram had always been a friend of David.

2 And Solomon relayed this message to Hiram:

7 When Hiram received Solomon’s message, he rejoiced greatly and said, “Blessed be the Lord this day! He has given David a wise son over this great people!” 8Then Hiram sent a reply to Solomon, saying:

10 So Hiram provided Solomon with all the cedar and cypress timber he wanted, 11and year after year Solomon would provide Hiram with 20,000 cors of wheat as food for his household, as well as 20,000 baths of pure olive oil.

12 And the Lord gave Solomon wisdom, as He had promised him. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty.

13 Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of 30,000 men from all Israel. 14He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of 10,000 men, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

15 Solomon had 70,000 porters and 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, 16not including his 3,300 foremen who supervised the workers.

17 And the king commanded them to quarry large, costly stones to lay the foundation of the temple with dressed stones. 18So Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders, along with the Gebalites, quarried the stone and prepared the timber and stone for the construction of the temple.

1 In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.

2 The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. 3The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple was twenty cubits long, extending across the width of the temple and projecting out ten cubits in front of the temple.

4 He also had narrow windows framed high in the temple.

5 Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. 6The bottom floor was five cubits wide, the middle floor six cubits, and the third floor seven cubits. He also placed offset ledges around the outside of the temple, so that nothing would be inserted into its walls.

7 The temple was constructed using finished stones cut at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any other iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

8 The entrance to the bottom floor was on the south side of the temple. A stairway led up to the middle level, and from there to the third floor.

9 So Solomon built the temple and finished it, roofing it with beams and planks of cedar. 10He built chambers all along the temple, each five cubits high and attached to the temple with beams of cedar.

11 Then the word of the Lord came to Solomon, saying: 12“As for this temple you are building, if you walk in My statutes, carry out My ordinances, and keep all My commandments by walking in them, I will fulfill through you the promise I made to your father David. 13And I will dwell among the Israelites and will not abandon My people Israel.”

14 So Solomon built the temple and finished it. 15He lined the interior walls with cedar paneling from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and he covered the floor with cypress boards.

16 He partitioned off the twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17And the main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long.

18 The cedar paneling inside the temple was carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; not a stone could be seen.

19 Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. 20The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar.

21 So Solomon overlaid the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22So he overlaid with gold the whole interior of the temple, until everything was completely finished. He also overlaid with gold the entire altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

23 In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim, each ten cubits high, out of olive wood. 24One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing was five cubits long as well. So the full wingspan was ten cubits. 25The second cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same size and shape, 26and the height of each cherub was ten cubits.

27 And he placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple. Since their wings were spread out, the wing of the first cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the second cherub touched the other wall, and in the middle of the room their wingtips touched. 28He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

29 Then he carved the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer sanctuaries, with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. 30And he overlaid the temple floor with gold in both the inner and outer sanctuaries.

31 For the entrance to the inner sanctuary, Solomon constructed doors of olive wood with five-sided doorposts. 32The double doors were made of olive wood, and he carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold.

33 In the same way he made four-sided doorposts of olive wood for the sanctuary entrance. 34The two doors were made of cypress wood, and each had two folding panels. 35He carved into them cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.

36 Solomon built the inner courtyard with three rows of dressed stone and one row of trimmed cedar beams.

37 The foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, in the month of Ziv. 38In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years.

1 Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”

2 And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3and told him, ‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you.’ 4So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God brought him out of that place and into this land where you are now living.

5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child. 6God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.’

8 Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

9 Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him 10and rescued him from all his troubles. He granted Joseph favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and all his household.

11 Then famine and great suffering swept across Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers could not find food. 12When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit. 13On their second visit, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and his family became known to Pharaoh. 14Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five in all.

15 So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. 16Their bones were carried back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a price he paid in silver.

17 As the time drew near for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham, our people in Egypt increased greatly in number. 18Then another king, who knew nothing of Joseph, arose over Egypt. 19He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.

20 At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in the sight of God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house. 21When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

23 When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24And when he saw one of them being mistreated, Moses went to his defense and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian who was oppressing him. 25He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.

26 The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’

27 But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.