8. Send me also from Lebanon cedar, cypress, and algum timber, for I know your servants can skillfully cut timber in Lebanon; and my servants will be with your servants,
9. To prepare for me timber in abundance, for the house I am about to build shall be great and wonderful.
10. And I will give to your servants who cut timber 20,000 measures of crushed wheat and also of barley, and 20,000 baths of wine and also of oil.
11. Then Hiram king of Tyre replied in writing sent to Solomon, Because the Lord loves His people, He has made you king over them.
12. Hiram said also, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, Who made heaven and earth, Who has given to David the king a wise son, endued with prudence and understanding, who should build a house for the Lord and a royal palace as his capitol.
13. Now I have sent a skilled man, endued with understanding, even Huram-abi, my trusted counselor,
14. The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; his father was a man of Tyre. He is a trained worker in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood; in purple, blue, and crimson colors, and in fine linen; and also to engrave any type of engraving and to carry out any design given him, with your skilled men and those of my lord, David your father.
15. Now therefore, the wheat, barley, oil, and wine of which my lord has spoken, let him send them to his servants,
16. And we will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and bring it to you in rafts by sea to Joppa, so you may take it up to Jerusalem.
17. Then Solomon took a census of all the aliens in the land of Israel, like the census of them which his father David had taken. They were found to be 153,600.
18. And he assigned 70,000 of them to be burden bearers, 80,000 to work in the mountain quarries, and 3,600 as overseers to direct the people's work.