1 Kings 5:1-18
5 And King Hiram of Tyre sent his representatives to Solomon, because he had heard that they had anointed him king as his father’s successor; for Hiram had always been friendly to David.
2 And Solomon sent word to Hiram
3 “You know my father David was not able to build a house for the name of his God Jehovah on account of the fighting with which he was surrounded, until Jehovah put them under his feet.
4 Now my God Jehovah has given me rest on all sides: there is no antagonist and no misadventure;
5 and I am thinking of building a house to the name of my God Jehovah, as Jehovah predicted to my father David ‘Your son whom I will put on your throne as your successor, he shall build the house for my name.’
6 * Now give orders to have them cut me cedars from the Lebanon, my subjects being there with yours, and I paying you the wages of your subjects just as you shall say, because you know yourself that there is not among us a man who knows how to cut timber like the Phenicians.”
7 And when Hiram heard Solomon’s message he was much pleased, and said “Blessed be Jehovah today for having given David a wise son over this great people”;
8 and Hiram sent word to Solomon “I have listened to what you sent to me: I will do all you want in the matter of cedar timber and cypress timber;
9 * my servants shall bring them down from the Lebanon to the sea, and I will make them into rafts and take them by sea to the place you send me word of, and break them up there, and you shall take them away; and you shall do what I want in the matter of furnishing food for my household.”
10 So Hiram furnished Solomon cedar timber and cypress timber, all he wanted,
11 and Solomon furnished Hiram two hundred thousand bushels of wheat as provision for his household, and two thousand gallons of beaten oil; such an amount Solomon furnished to Hiram year by year.
12 And Jehovah gave Solomon wisdom, as he had promised to him. And there was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and the two made a treaty.
13 And Solomon raised a corvée from all Israel: the corvée was thirty thousand men;
14 and he sent them to the Lebanon, ten thousand a month by shifts: they were on the Lebanon a month and at home two months; and Adoniram was over the corvée.
15 And Solomon had seventy thousand porters carrying loads, and eighty thousand woodcutters cutting on the mountain,
16 besides Solomon’s chief commissioners who were over the work, thirty-three thousand of them, who were in authority over the people that were doing the work.
17 And the king ordered the quarrying of great stones, fine stones, to give the house a dressed-stone foundation;
18 and Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders and the Gebalites shaped them and got the timber and stone ready for building the house.
Footnotes
^ 5:6 Lit. my subjects being with yours
^ 5:9 Lit. make them into rafts by sea to the place Var. omits by sea
