New Living Translation

1 Kings 7:10-28 New Living Translation (NLT)

10. Some of the huge foundation stones were 15 feet long, and some were 12 feet long.

11. The blocks of high-quality stone used in the walls were also cut to measure, and cedar beams were also used.

12. The walls of the great courtyard were built so that there was one layer of cedar beams between every three layers of finished stone, just like the walls of the inner courtyard of the lord’s Temple with its entry room.

13. King Solomon then asked for a man named Huram to come from Tyre.

14. He was half Israelite, since his mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. Huram was extremely skillful and talented in any work in bronze, and he came to do all the metal work for King Solomon.

15. Huram cast two bronze pillars, each 27 feet tall and 18 feet in circumference.

16. For the tops of the pillars he cast bronze capitals, each 71/2 feet tall.

17. Each capital was decorated with seven sets of latticework and interwoven chains.

18. He also encircled the latticework with two rows of pomegranates to decorate the capitals over the pillars.

19. The capitals on the columns inside the entry room were shaped like water lilies, and they were six feet tall.

20. The capitals on the two pillars had 200 pomegranates in two rows around them, beside the rounded surface next to the latticework.

21. Huram set the pillars at the entrance of the Temple, one toward the south and one toward the north. He named the one on the south Jakin, and the one on the north Boaz.

22. The capitals on the pillars were shaped like water lilies. And so the work on the pillars was finished.

23. Then Huram cast a great round basin, 15 feet across from rim to rim, called the Sea. It was 71/2 feet deep and about 45 feet in circumference.

24. It was encircled just below its rim by two rows of decorative gourds. There were about six gourds per foot all the way around, and they were cast as part of the basin.

25. The Sea was placed on a base of twelve bronze oxen, all facing outward. Three faced north, three faced west, three faced south, and three faced east, and the Sea rested on them.

26. The walls of the Sea were about three inches thick, and its rim flared out like a cup and resembled a water lily blossom. It could hold about 11,000 gallons of water.

27. Huram also made ten bronze water carts, each 6 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 41/2 feet tall.

28. They were constructed with side panels braced with crossbars.