8. Behind the Judgment Hall was a courtyard. The palace where Solomon lived was built around that courtyard and looked like the Judgment Hall. He also built the same kind of palace for his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt.
9. All these buildings were made with expensive blocks of stone. The stones were cut to the right size with a saw and then smoothed on front and back. These expensive stones went from the foundation all the way up to the top layer of the wall. Even the wall around the yard was made with expensive blocks of stone.
10. The foundations were made with large, expensive stones. Some of the stones were 10 cubits long and the others were 8 cubits long.
11. On top of these stones there were other expensive stones and cedar beams.
12. There were walls around the palace yard and around the yard and porch of the Lord’S Temple. The walls were built with three rows of stone and one row of cedar timbers.
13. King Solomon sent for a man named Huram who lived in Tyre and brought him to Jerusalem.
14. Huram’s mother was an Israelite from the tribe of Naphtali. His dead father was from Tyre. Huram made things from bronze. He was a very skilled and experienced builder. So King Solomon asked him to come, and Huram accepted. King Solomon put him in charge of all the bronze work, and Huram did all the work he was given to do.