Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
2 Chronicles 4
The Bronze Altar and Sea
He made a bronze altar, twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. He made the Sea of cast metal, ten cubits from rim to rim, circular all around, five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits encircled it. Under it were figures of oxen all around, ten to a cubit, encircling the Sea all around. The oxen were in two rows, cast as one piece with it. It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The Sea was set upon them, and all their hindquarters were inward. Its thickness was a handbreadth, and its rim was made like the rim of a cup, like a lily blossom. It held three thousand baths.
The Basins and Lampstands
He made ten basins and put five on the right and five on the left to wash in them. The things used for the burnt offering were rinsed in them, but the Sea was for the priests to wash in. He made ten gold lampstands according to their design and set them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left. He made ten tables and placed them in the temple, five on the right and five on the left. He also made one hundred gold bowls. He made the court of the priests and the great court and doors for the court, and overlaid their doors with bronze. He set the Sea on the right side, toward the southeast.
Huram’s Bronze Work
Huram made the pots, shovels, and bowls. So Huram finished doing the work that he did for King Solomon in the house of God: the two pillars, the bowls of the capitals that were on top of the two pillars, the two networks covering the two bowls of the capitals that were on top of the pillars, the four hundred pomegranates for the two networks, two rows of pomegranates for each network to cover the two bowls of the capitals that were upon the pillars. He made the stands, and he made the basins upon the stands, the one Sea and the twelve oxen beneath it, the pots, shovels, forks, and all their equipment. Huram-Abiv made them for King Solomon for the house of the LORD from polished bronze.
The Temple Vessels
The king cast them in the plain of the Jordan, in the clay ground between Succoth and Zeredah. Solomon made all these vessels in very great abundance, for the weight of the bronze was not determined. Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of God: the gold altar, the tables upon which was the bread of the Presence, the lampstands and their lamps of pure gold, to burn according to the ordinance before the inner sanctuary, the flowers, lamps, and tongs of gold, of the finest gold, the snuffers, bowls, dishes, and firepans of pure gold, and the entrance of the house—its inner doors to the Most Holy Place and the doors of the house of the temple—of gold.