2 Chronicles 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Solomon decided to build a house for the name of Yahweh and a royal palace for himself.

Solomon conscripted seventy thousand men as laborers, eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as supervisors over them.

Solomon sent word to Hiram king of Tyre: "Do for me what you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in.

Look, I'm about to build a house for the name of Yahweh my God, to dedicate it to him — for burning fragrant incense before him, for the regular display of the sacred bread, and for burnt offerings morning and evening, on the Sabbaths, the New Moon festivals, and the appointed festivals of Yahweh our God. This is required of Israel forever.

The house I'm building will be great, because our God is greater than all gods.

But who is really able to build him a house? Even the heavens — even the highest heavens — can't contain him! So who am I to build him a house? It would only be a place to burn offerings before him.

Now send me a skilled craftsman who can work with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and with purple, crimson, and blue yarn, and who knows how to do engraving — to work alongside the skilled workers with me in Judah and Jerusalem, the ones my father David arranged for.

Also send me cedar, cypress, and algum timber from Lebanon. I know that your servants are skilled at cutting Lebanon's timber, and my servants will work with yours

to prepare massive quantities of timber for me, because the house I'm building will be impressively great.

I'll provide for your servants, the woodcutters who fell the timber: twenty thousand cors of crushed wheat, twenty thousand cors of barley, twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of olive oil."

Then Hiram king of Tyre replied in a letter he sent to Solomon: "Because Yahweh loves his people, he has made you king over them."

Hiram also said, "Praise Yahweh, the God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth! He has given King David a wise son, with good judgment and understanding, who will build a house for Yahweh and a royal palace for himself.

Now I'm sending you Huram-abi, a skilled and knowledgeable craftsman,

the son of a woman from the tribe of Dan. His father was from Tyre. He's trained to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, wood, purple and blue and crimson yarn and fine linen. He can do any kind of engraving and can execute any design given to him. He'll work with your skilled craftsmen and with those of my lord David, your father.

Now then, let my lord send his servants the wheat, barley, olive oil, and wine he promised.

We will cut whatever timber you need from Lebanon and float it to you as rafts by sea to Joppa. Then you can haul it up to Jerusalem."

Solomon counted all the foreign residents in the land of Israel, following the census that his father David had taken, and there were 153,600.

He assigned seventy thousand of them as laborers, eighty thousand as stonecutters in the hill country, and three thousand six hundred as supervisors to keep the people working.