2 Chronicles
2 And Solomon thought of building a house for the name of Jehovah and a house for his own royal residence; 2 and Solomon counted off seventy thousand porters and eighty thousand woodcutters to cut on the mountain, and thirty-two hundred supervisors over them.
3* And Solomon sent word to King Huram of Tyre “As you did by my father David, sending him cedar to build himself a house to live in,— 4 here I am building a house for the name of my God Jehovah to dedicate to him for burning aromatic incense before him and for regular stacks of bread and burnt-offerings at morning and at evening, on sabbaths and at new moons and on the annual dates of our God Jehovah; this is Israel’s duty forever. 5 And the house I am building is to be great, because our God is greater than all gods; 6 and who holds power to build a house for him? for the skies and the skies of the skies cannot contain him, and who am I to build a house for him, except to burn incense before him? 7 Now send me a man skilled at working in gold and silver and bronze and iron and purple and crimson and violet, who will know how to execute carvings with the artists I have by me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom my father David provided. 8 And send me cedar, cypress, and algum from the Lebanon, for I know your subjects know how to cut Lebanon timber; and you will have my subjects there with yours; 9 and there will have to be a great deal of timber got ready for me, because the house I am building is to be great and marvelous. 10 And here for the woodcutters, those who are felling the trees, I am giving wheat as food for your subjects, wheat two hundred thousand bushels and barley two hundred thousand bushels and wine two hundred thousand gallons and oil two hundred thousand gallons.”
11 And King Huram of Tyre said in writing, and sent it to Solomon, “It was because Jehovah loved his people that he put you over them as king.” 12* And Huram said “Blessed be Israel’s God Jehovah who made the sky and the earth, that he gave King David a wise son, a man of good sense and discernment, who should build a house for Jehovah and a house for his own royal residence. 13 Now then, I am sending you an intelligent skilled man, Huram-Abi 14 the son of a Danite woman, whose father was a Tyrian, one who knows how to work in gold and silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone, in wood, in purple, in violet, and in lawn and crimson, and to create designs which shall be proposed to him, with your artists and your father David’s. 15 Now then as to the wheat and barley and oil and wine that my lord spoke of, let him send it to his servants, 16 and we will cut timber from the Lebanon in whatever quantities you need and raft it to Joppa roadstead for you; and you will do the bringing it up to Jerusalem.”
17 And Solomon counted all the immigrant population in Israel, after the count that his father David had taken of them, and there were found to be a hundred and fifty-three thousand and six hundred of them; 18 and he made seventy thousand of them porters, and eighty thousand woodcutters on the mountain, and thirty-six hundred supervisors to keep the people at work.