So David gave instructions to gather together those sojourning in the land of Israel, and he appointed stonemasons to cut hewn stones for building the house of God.
The house was built of stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.
to the masons and stonecutters, and to buy timber and cut stone to repair the damages to the house of the Lord, that is, whatever went out for repairs to the house.
King David said to all the assembly, “Solomon my son, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced, and the work is great since the palace is not for a man but for the Lord God.
And let us cut the timber from Lebanon, whatever you need, and we will bring it to you on rafts on the sea to Joppa, and you will bring it up to Jerusalem.”
Then Solomon numbered all the male foreigners who were in the land of Israel, after the census that David his father had taken. And there were found one hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred.
They gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and to the people of Tyre so that they would bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, at Joppa, according to the grant they had from Cyrus king of Persia.
were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.